Speaking at the NDTV World Summit on Tuesday, Groww co-founder and CEO Lalit Keshare said mutual funds remain the most attractive investment instrument for retail investors and a lot of innovation is happening in this space. Mr Keshare, who started Groww in 2016 with three other co-founders, spoke about the tremendous growth in retail investment in India and the reason for this remarkable increase in investor confidence during a fiery conversation on the second day of the summit. Talked.
increase in equity investment
Mr Keshare credited internet connectivity and the introduction of Aadhaar and UPI for reducing barriers to access investment platforms, followed by platforms that made it easy and transparent.
“Earlier, investment was limited to cities like Mumbai and Bangalore, a few cities in Gujarat. Now a lot of customers are from smaller towns because a lot of the information that was missing is now available to everyone at their fingertips. This is a big fundamental “The change has happened. The long-term trend started in 2015-16 and we were lucky to start at that time.”
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homecoming
Grow was founded in 2016 and recently moved its headquarters from the US to India. Asked whether it would increase his tax liabilities, Mr Keshare said, “That’s the price you pay. But in the long run, I think it will be very good for us.”
“Grow is an Indian company. The customers and management are in India and all operations are in India. So, there is no point in being outside India. We are a YC company, so we had to register in the US, but now there No, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be in India,” he said. “YC Company” refers to a firm that has been through the Y-Combinator startup accelerator program.
IPO soon?
Mr. Keshare did not say whether Groww planned to go public soon. Asked when the discount broker might launch its IPO, he said, “Probably sometime. It’s decided somewhere, but we don’t know when.”
next phase of development
Mr Keshare said it is difficult to predict what the next big phase of growth will be and mutual funds remain the most attractive product for retail investors. “There’s going to be a lot of new stuff there too,” he said.
Retail investors and F&O
Asked about regulatory concerns and whether he thinks retail investors need to be protected from derivatives trading, he said, “There are some things where customer protection is very important. From that perspective, I think we’re right.” Are in the direction.”
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The next big innovation
When asked if Groww is working on its next big innovation, he said the company works like an innovation factory rather than focusing on one big idea. “It’s very boring behind the scenes, but what comes out is much more exciting for customers,” he said.
What the fintech world needs
Mr Keshare said the fintech industry requires a lot of investment for infrastructure development as it is very complex. “We have about 400 engineers working on making things right because it’s about customers’ hard-earned money. Reliability becomes the number one promise in the roadmap and everything else is secondary,” he said.
