The Connector Podcast - WealthTech Live in Zürich 2024 - Charting Asia's Wealth Management Transformation by Valuefy

In our latest Connector podcast episode, unlock the secrets of Asia's wealth management evolution with Shirkant Tiwari, a luminary from Valuefy. Listen as he narrates his journey from the historic city of Jaipur to reshaping the financial contours of an entire continent. His profound insights into the cultural fabric of Asian savings and investment traditions reveal a seismic shift towards modern financial practices powered by technology and innovation. Discover how systematic investment plans redefine personal finance in India, propelling a new era of economic growth and stability.

Witness firsthand the transformation of a culture rooted in savings into one embracing wealth management's complexities. Srikant's expertise highlights the massive ripple effects these changes have on global market dynamics, evidenced by the resilience of Indian markets against foreign investor trends. Through engaging stories and comprehensive analysis, this conversation with Srikant Tiwari provides an unparalleled glimpse into the future of finance in Asia, a region that's rapidly becoming a fulcrum of worldwide economic balance. Tune in for an episode that promises not just to inform but to enlighten on the monumental financial shifts occurring in the East.

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Koen Vanderhoydonk
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#FinTech #RegTech #Scaleup #WealthTech

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to the Connector podcast, an ongoing conversation connecting fintechs, banks and regulators worldwide. Join CEO and founder Koen van der Hoidong as you learn more about the latest available trends and solutions in the markets.

Speaker 2: 0:20

Welcome to another podcast, and together with me I have Srikant, and Srikrant is from India but lives here for a while in Europe. But what is super interesting, and before you actually introduce yourself, srikant has a very particular view on what's happening in the wealth management industry in Asia, so he's happy to share that with us. Srikant, very welcome in this podcast. Can you explain who you are, where you work for and so on?

Speaker 3: 0:47

Sure. Thank you, koen, for inviting me to this great podcast. My name is Srikant Srikant Tiwari and I'm a partner at ValueFi. I co-founded this company with two of my co-founders. We are 10-year-old. We are an Indian, well-teach company. I think India is a name which is getting its reciprocation from all corners of the world for all good things and I can tell you, not only India, the entire Asia is shifting and I would not shy away from saying the continental or the global balance in shifting as we speak.

Speaker 3: 1:22

India I grew up in India, whereabouts in India? I'm from the north part of India. It's a city called Jaipur, a very historical city. It comes as a part of the Golden Triangle tourism attraction globally.

Speaker 3: 1:40

And when we, as Indians, grew up not with investments, we as Indians, grew up with savings, and I think you must have heard all across the board that Asian cultures, whether it's Chinese, indian, saudi, asian, is about savings, because it's cultural to us that you earn and you save. We were introduced when I say we Indians, and I'm very, very sure most of the Asians were introduced to savings pretty early in the childhood by parents, by grandparents, and it's occasion Every festival, your elder one gives you some money and then with that money, they tell you you spend some and you save some. So I'm telling you it's so ingrained in our culture to save. Now why this conversation of saving is so important. We're talking about wealth, not saving, right? This is the thing Asians were born with savings in this culture. And all of a sudden there the per capita income started rising. If you look at the global averages in terms of the incomes in technology, industry, hospitality, in various service industries in India or China or Southeast Asia, is increasing and with the ingrained savings culture, they were saving a lot and they were putting that money earlier in banks. But in the last 10 years, a big trend shifted. I think it's a combination of digital, combination of products getting introduced, combination of regular getting regulator, getting more and more standardized and bringing global culture of investment.

Speaker 3: 3:15

So I'll just talk about one simple thing, one single simple thing, which totally changed the India and the way they look at investments. It's called mutual funds. It's a campaign in the local language which basically talks about that. If you put your money systematically, which is called systematic investment plan if you go to India and ask any person how do you invest, he's going to tell you I invest in SIP, sip what is SIP? It's very simple, it's systematic investment plan. The regulator and the entire industry came behind it, just like the connector. They created an environment where the entire industry is promoting the culture of investing in SIP and everybody started from savings, a culture of putting the money in the bank, to investing in funds, and there are all kinds of funds.

Speaker 3: 4:11

Now this phenomena totally changed India in the last five, seven years. You look at it, in fact, if you look at the news, the coverage for the last five, seven years, whenever there is an foreign institution selling Indian markets, indian markets are directly proportional going down, while today, from the last few months, I've been hearing foreign and institutional investors are selling and the market is just going up. Why there is an access of liquidity. There is so much of normal people investing in SIP. The money is all going into the mutual funds and then it's coming into the market giving a great support. I may be wrong on the number, but there are billions of SIPs which are already been locked by common people and all that money is flushing in the market.

Speaker 3: 4:56

Now the interesting part about probably what I learned about living in Asia and living now in the last three years in London. Everybody do investments in London or mostly continental Europe. They've been doing it and that's why the industry is so flourished In India. Still we don't have more than four, five, six, seven, less than 10% people doing this SIP. Now the bigger market could be as high as 25%.

Speaker 3: 5:27

Now just imagine in the next few years when all these people and the generational shift is happening and they start investing like this, the market is going to explode and we can see the effect of it. That's why the local companies, the equity IPOs, don't have to look out. There is so much of liquidity to support the entire market. Now, this is what I was talking about. Asian economies are a saving phenomena, through technology and through this whole market ecosystem, converting into a wealth phenomena, and that is where companies like our success to verify, which is trying to build a wealth proposition, work with banks and kind of deepen this proposition across the board. So we work with multiple markets India, southeast Asia, singapore, dubai. So yeah, just wanted to give you a real background.

Speaker 2: 6:19

That's super insightful. I'm just wondering, shrikant, how does it actually apply to what you have seen in Europe Since you said you're here in London for the last three years? Have you seen any similarities? Have you seen any complete differences?

Speaker 3: 6:37

Well, let me talk about two similarities here, and I think the common denominator of that similarity is the technology. I think the markets in Asia and the markets in Europe are a different curve when it comes to the behavior of retail people, or, you know, h&is, or what we're calling now today, in the event, today, very interesting conversation about generational shift of wealth. But there is a common denominator in industry which is called technology and that's the phenomena. You see, that's the only phenomena. You see, asia is ahead and I would not, would not shy away from saying probably Europe, the sector in the parts of Europe, is catching up. But but this is where I see an opportunity because, like in the market where I know, where I live now in London, if you don't have at least 500,000 quids, it's difficult or almost close to impossible for you to find a financial advisor because the IFA market it's so difficult to service, you know, individual investor and and and get a proper advice. While while there are, there are, there is, there are, there is a. So while there is a, there is a presence of phenomena of, you know, saving, investing, pensions and all of that. But the whole IFA sector is kind of struggling with not having a total ecosystem Because and what's the reason? Because I think the sophistication of the market happened and everybody built the technologies are built for the purpose right, but at the same time they get obsolete. So they totally do not build the technology from a digital point of view, and I think that's the arbitrage.

Speaker 3: 8:31

We see that in Europe, which is a developed market, there is so much which can be done by technology companies to bring a kind of a platform approach or kind of a solution boxed approach for different segments like IFA, like wealth managers, multi-family offices, single-family offices, and that's what Vellify is trying to do.

Speaker 3: 8:54

We're bringing wealth in a box and try to bring a cloud and SaaS approach to enterprise technology. So far we have seen that when it comes to wealth technology or I think we spoke about in just one session in the event, about where SingPers in SaaS was talking about, you know, kind of creating a SaaS technology in the core banking the same thing we're trying to achieve, because creating an end-to-end open architecture wealth platform which can fit into an IFA and wealth management market but it's also superior in the technology, will bring down the cost, will bring down the entire connectivity between advisor and their audience. I think that's what I see the arbitrage between Asia being ahead in technology, behind in the investment curve and I think, the other way around in Europe. So I think that's the kind of thing I see in Europe.

Speaker 2: 9:50

Well, time flies when you're having fun. That's what I say sometimes. We're getting towards the end of this conversation and I was wondering if you could give me some insights from the event itself. We today at Swiss Wealth Tech Live, organized by Wealth Mosaic. What have been your findings so far?

Speaker 3: 10:12

Is it being leading growth and sales for a fintech organization? It's my responsibility and a natural choice to be in a lot of events all over the Bayer, singapore, london and many places. I think I've been in touch with Stephen for a very long time. What I like about this event is the curation he has done. These topics have been chosen very carefully. It's not very one-sided.

Speaker 2: 10:40

It's very important.

Speaker 3: 10:42

It's not one-sided, that all Davey are talking about wealth. I personally like content-oriented topics and second thing, which I think I'll give a hat-off to him or his team, or Wealth Mosaic as a platform that they're able to bring the diversity I just bumped into you. It's a great discovery for me because this was a problem which was there in my mind, but I never thought a solution like the connector existed. So I met almost half a dozen different diversified crowds. So I find the whole event is very curated, content-oriented and the selection of the audience is very mixed up so they can make what you call in sales world proper matches. Serendipity, yeah, serendipity.

Speaker 3: 11:33

That's the best word for it, so I think that's what I will give a hat-off. I think half of the event is still left, so probably we'll have more good things to look at, so yeah, absolutely, srikant.

Speaker 2: 11:43

It was really amazing to have you in a very last-minute sort of podcast interview, but it has been amazing. Thank you for sharing your insights. Thank you also for the audience and let's stay tuned because more news to come from this marvelous event.

Speaker 3: 11:58

Thank you very much. Thank you. It was lovely chatting with you in this podcast. Look forward, thank you.

Speaker 1: 12:05

Thanks for listening to another episode of the Connector podcast. To connect and keep up to date with all the latest, head over to wwwjointheconectorcom or hit subscribe via your podcast streaming platform.