RupeeCamp: 10x Better than Other Financial Advisory?

Posted on March 31, 2011 by Ranjan

“You need to make sure your product is 10x better than that of your competitors. First, you’re probably exaggerating how much better it is. But also when you’re developing so is your competitor. So if you shoot for 10x better you might hit 3x better and that’s super important to win.” (Source)

At RupeeCamp, we are looking at helping you with the following:

Understand and plan your finances.
Help you select different financial products.
Provide continuous support and review

So, while RupeeCamp is a skill development workshop, it has real outcomes as it’s objective. I have also said that RupeeCamp is the middle path of financial advisory

The question is whether we are 10x better than the millions of financial advisors in the country. Even though the proof of the pudding is in the eating (we’ll know on 9th April!), here’s my own targets:

In terms of knowledge, transparency and information sharing, we will be 10x better than the average financial advisor. (The 90% advisors, atleast)
In terms of cost, the professional Financial Planners charges range from Rs 10 – 50K. If we take the average, it’s 30K. My inaugural price for RupeeCamp is just Rs 3k, which is exactly 1/10th.

So if we add up the two points above, I guess the value of RupeeCamp is 20x the competition. Infact, I’d prefer to take it as 10×10= 100 times better!

And thanks for your encouragement, we have just 5 participants seats available as of now. I may have to close registrations in a day or two. Thanks.

Coming Soon! RupeeCamp "Financial Planning Workshop". "Join us"

Welcome back! Join me on this journey to improving our financial IQ and sharing what we know. Updates at RSS feed or Email. And spread the word please Thank You!

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Financial Inclusion & Financial Literacy: Intentions & Realities

Posted on July 14, 2010 by Ranjan

The newspaper today has stories on financial inclusion and financial literacy. This post is about my thoughts on the noble intentions v/s the hard realities in the areas of financial inclusion and financial literacy.

Mumbo Jumbo? Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee described the FE Best Banks Awards function held yesterday as having evolved into a “popular event” for India Inc to highlight the importance of bringing banking to those “who need the very basic financial services.” He said that the event could significantly contribute towards highlighting the importance of expansion of banking activities for economic development.

High sounding words: Speaking about financial inclusion, the Finance Minister said competing needs for the financial resources required for high growth necessitate that these resources should be used at the maximum possible efficiency.

“The financial intermediation for these financial resources should be cost-efficient and allocation efficiency should be high,” Mukherjee said.

My Questions: It’s all good to network and celebrate performance. But I fail to understand the connect between the celebrations and the financial inclusion part. I don’t really understand the rhetoric. Am I fast becoming a dyslexic? What about you? If you are able to make sense of the high sounding words, please educate me.

As an aside, the Akshaya Patra Foundation in India has found a way to feed a child daily for the entire school year on just $28. (Source)

As another aside, the event cost of the Awards would be in crores. Just a rough guess.

As aside no.3, I quote Subramoney on the poor small investor, “small investor, financial literacy, financial awareness, financial inclusion….what an amazing array of words we have created for bureaucrats, politicians, businessmen, capital market pundits to meet and eat!”

Next is Financial Literacy. Here’s another high sounding quote:

U K Sinha, CMD, UTI AMC said, “Swatantra’ is India’s Journey to financial freedom and is the largest investor campaign in the country which will cover over 300 cities in 100 days through 100 investor meets. Financial Education is very crucial for the growth of India’s capital market and India will progress at a faster pace if there is higher retail participation in the capital markets. This Campaign will target inculcating financial literacy to potential investors which will help them to take informed decisions.”

My take:
Handing out visually beautiful brochures about the do’s and don’ts of finance does not help the small investors take informed decisions. Financial decisions are personal and you need to understand each individual’s situation to help him make an informed decision. A town hall method of imparting financial education will be totally ineffective.

Further, the financial education needs to be unbiased and independent. But who will be the resource persons for imparting the education. My feeling is that the Branch Heads of the UTI Branches across the country (having stiff sales targets) will be used. What will they do other than selling UTIMF products to the investors.

Conclusions:
There’s a wide disconnect between noble intentions and hard realities. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride, an English language proverb , clearly suggests that it is useless to wish; better results will be achieved through action.

But here the action itself is useless, IMHO. A lot of effort needs to be taken to design a financial literacy program. What do you say?

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What’s In It For Me in a Personal Finance Workshop

Posted on April 20, 2010 by Ranjan

Talking to a group of people, I was waxing eloquent how taking control of their finances was so important. Until I saw a young guy frowning and thinking why he was wasting his time with me. Yes, I can read minds!

In any case, What’s In It For Me (WIIFM) is an important question that needs to be answered.

“Important, Need to be more responsible” are good sounding words when we are speaking from a high, parental ground. Unfortunately, they don’t make an impact on a young guy!

To my mind, it’s important to put a tangible figure on the difference between good and bad money management. Let me give you my own example. Btw, it’s a bad example

I have been working with a PSU for 20 long years and had I been saving regularly right from 1990 when I joined work and investing them properly, I would be having a networth as shown in the following Excel sheet.
Click to enlarge

The assumptions are very simple. I invest 25% of my income every year and get a return of 10% annually. The investments are made every year and not every month. Every month investment will lead to a much higher figure!

Ideally/ theoretically, I should be having a Networth of approximately Rs 23-24 lacs. But, the actual Networth (excluding my House/Ancestral Property) is not even half of that.

That means that my less than ideal money management has resulted in a loss of over Rs 10 lacs. Yes, that’s a million rupee mistake!

I have woken up a little late. I am on my way to mend whatever I can. And I can share my learning with you and help you manage your finances in a better way.

Does it make sense to save yourself from making the “Million Dollar Mistake” (Oops, it’s our Rupee)? Do you think attending a Financial Health Check & Planning Workshop is a good idea?

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Coming Soon! Rupee Manager Workshops Near You

Posted on September 12, 2009 by Ranjan

This is the 10 slide deck introducing the Rupee Manager Workshop that I am planning. Would be delighted to see your comments.

Rupee Management Workshop

View more presentations from Ranjan Varma.

Transcript for two slides:
# Problem

* Huge Information Asymmetry in Financial Services

* Uninformed Financial Decisions by Educated people

* No Measurement tool to guide the management of Money

* Lack of authoritative resources & books in the Indian context

* Information overload on the Internet

# Solution

* Workshops

o at Corporates, Facilitate one-to-one Financial Planning to employees at Corporates.

* RupeeManager software :A desktop s/w where you can Measure, Manage & Make your Money Work.

* E-learning follow up module

* Online/Offline (E-books) Aggregation of Resources on personal finance

* Financial Services Only term assurance, select Mutual Funds and Stocks

What do you have to say about this workshop? Would you like to attend?

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Introducing India’s Online Insurance Community

Posted on August 27, 2009 by Ranjan

BimaWorld is a new online Insurance Community in India. They have useful articles and discussions happening online.

Btw, they also picked me as the winner of the “Question of the month” contest. (Vanity strikes!)

I asked Devanand Agarwal, the Cofounder, Bimaworld about how he’s going to build this community. Here’s the questions and his answers:

Q. 1. a) What prompted you to start your website?

Information is the key to make a wise decision. Websites are very handy in spreading the information. Also masses are not yet conscious about insurance. Like any other subject, insurance need to be talked about, discussed & debated, and website can be a very ideal platform for this. Also absence of an advisor cum expert agent, lack of flow of correct information, wrong selling of policies, poor after-sales service and No-claim Assistance promoted us to start our website.

Q. 1. b) What motivates you to keep on going?

Positive responses from insurance seeking community and insurance industry professionals who are not internet savvy but have years of experience in insurance. They have shown willingness to join bimaworld and help community. Soon we will launch a special expert consultancy section where anyone can communicate with our panel of elite members. Kolkata Blogger’s Meet Aug’2009 was very motivating and reaffirmed us that the decision to start an online community was right. Seeing our website taking practical shape and our teammates filled with innovative thoughts, dedication energizes us to continue further.

Q. 2. Why is it that, generally people avoid or have a fear of financial planning?

Liquidity Crunch, Small Savings, Irregular income, Lack of Knowledge, numerous products to choose, Inability to figure-out phases and needs for life that may arise in future, Insecurity of parting liquidity- Stories of Cheat fund Companies, no- corrective measures from Government agencies, judicial delay and Limitations thereto.

Q. 2. b) What is the fundamental problem?

Lack of knowledge, inability to figure-out phases and needs for future are basic issues.

Q. 3. The aim of your site is to help people make an informed decision about their insurance. But the present information asymmetry between buyers and sellers is huge. Do you see the internet making an impact on reducing the information gap?

Yes, to a large extent.

Information on net are numerous and available in text, blogs, forums, graphic, article, videos forms, the users are also getting more and more friendly to these modes. But explanation in simpler terms and its complete understanding is still a concern for all, alike approachability and shortage of time; which we will make easy and happen for the masses.

Q. 4. What role do you see for offline seminars and workshops rather than online education?

Motive of both Online and Offline system is to sell across the message “to the point”.

Online is getting personalized and also picking-up its momentum but offline workshops and seminars are more powerful & very much acceptable to the masses, a lot of live interaction takes place and thousands of unknown questions are answered at a time.

Q. 5. How would you advise? To have one personal finance consultant who maintains your money or have an insurance consultant, Mutual Fund advisor, Stock Broker separately?

A Personal Financial Advisor can be said “Jack of all but Master of none”, who can give an overall suggestion on investment pattern and help in choosing plans.

But like others, he would be having his limitations depending upon his capabilities, skills and understanding. Separate consultants like insurance consultant would be more advisable because of their specialization with compulsion to answer comparative views on other financial products.

Moreover claims handling, policy servicing and suggesting skills are the areas which gives an edge to the insurance consultant over a personal financial advisor, 90 times out of 100.

Q. 6. Do you visualize a growing use of personal finance software to track and manage money in India?

Yes, people in India are trying to have a system to track their business, money, investment, budgeting pattern etc. further MIS reports are getting more popular among individuals alike Corporate investors.

Q. 7. The Regulators are cracking the whip on Asset Management Companies and Insurers. What’s your wish list from the IRDA?

It is an important job and duty of the regulatory body to perform.

The concern is that for public money, which for all times should be protected.

But they (Regulatory) have their own limitations apart from the political and judicial system being very slow in implementing its decisions and setting an example before all. Wish list –IRDA- none this time

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Financial Planning Workshop

Posted on April 12, 2009 by Ranjan

While attending a workshop for Trainers, I remembered that I have been planning a “Personal Finance Workshop” for quite some time. I have been telling myself that one should “Do it well, or don’t do it”. The result: no progress!

Let me list out the workshop objectives and the things that I want to cover in the workshop to get me re-started on this job.

Workshop Objective:

The workshops will help the households to make better financial decisions and avoid common financial mistakes

Workshop Contents: