Investment Management By Vivek Banka – Goal Teller

In this article, Vivek Banka from Goal Teller shares how he helps clients from all over India with investment management.

We’ll cover:

  1. Q: What was the core need or inspiration to create Goal Teller?
  2. Q: What are the demographics of India?
  3.  Q: How large is the target market? 
  4. Q: Who’s the target market?
  5. Q: How does Goal Teller assimilate information, real-time, costs, and alignment of interest, and then funnel them into three different offerings for the user?
  6. Q: How would Goal Teller help the person who wants to get a car and has to pay rent and have other expenses as well?
  7. Q: What is the before and after case of who uses Goal Teller?
  8. Q: Have you got any inspiring feedback from people after they used Goal Teller? 

Q: What was the core need or inspiration to create Goal Teller?

I think with my decades of experience in the investment management space, one thing which stands out is that investment management as a space has not seen brain and money flowing into the advisory piece. And money flowing into the advisory piece. 

Most of the money globally has poured into execution platforms. Whether you take Betterment or Wealthfront, or any of these platforms globally, most of the money has gone into making better execution platforms, but there is no single platform that helps people in the management of their money. 

The use of artificial intelligence and predictive technology to ensure that users know that there is a guide, a platform or tool that is sitting like a hawk on their money, and anything to do with any news item on any single day. 

For example, as a user, what happens is I am most worried that today if there is a bomb loss in Afghanistan, you know, if the Fed raises rates, I don’t know how my money is impacted with that. 

Goal tellers essentially will act as a guide as a hawk and tell you that any event that happens globally, if there is any impact on your investments, there will be a tangible score given to you every week, which will demonstrate how these events have impacted you. 

This is something which we feel is very, very important. This will give peace of mind to the users. This is one element.

Three Problems 

  • The first problem is the information barrier
  • The second thing is the alignment of interest because there is a massive alignment of interest issues.
  • Thirdly, the costs.

I think; hopefully, we will succeed in bridging all these three barriers,

Q: What are the demographics of India?

In terms of demographics, I would tend to believe our biggest target markets would be people between the age groups of 25 to approximately 55. 

Individuals who have just entered the job market who are not very sure of what to do in the investment market and assets management, what not to do, their typical areas of advisor, their friends, family, co-workers, you know, all very ad hoc advice, no holistic advice, which you get. 

The same thing continues for middle-aged guys who get access to a wealth manager, but the problem is there; these wealth managers have the same situation where alignment of interest costs and information dissemination is not proper. 

Lastly, for people who are about to retire or even retirees. They are one of the big ones that are massively subject to misselling because, after retirement, the kind of investment planning that an individual need is starkly different from when he is in the workforce. Their investment and fund management are different.

Because what happens is that they need a regular source of income from the investments, the investments become the only source of capital for them. They cannot replenish it in case of any difficulties. 

So, all these three persons are where the Goal Teller will be extremely helpful for these guys.

Q: How large is the target market?

In terms of the number of people, if I may say right now, our target segment would be approximately 50 million individuals in the country. I mean, possibly more, we’ve worked on different platforms, but our advisory core business will target approximately 30 to 50 million individuals in India. 

Q: Who’s the target market?

In terms of who will require our services, I think anyone who is not satisfied with the current advisors is facing problems with costs and alignment of interest.

Q: How does Goal Teller assimilate information, real-time, costs, and alignment of interest, and then funnel them into three different offerings for the user?

All these three funnels come together to ensure that the user’s investment management is proper, lifestyle management is proper and lastly, and security management is well taken care of. The minute a user logs into Goal Teller, they have a checklist where they know about the investment management side.

If there are any problems that they’re facing are the “pending items on the lifestyle.” Suppose there are any pending items and on the security side of the running pending items. Once these three things are sorted, I think you’re charged from a checklist perspective that there is absolutely nothing else that is remaining. 

Q: How would Goal Teller help the person who wants to get a car and has to pay rent and have other expenses as well?

 In this kind of case, we actually visualize that the expenses will go up manifold in the future and which is why we calculate how much they should save right now. 

So we ensure that they save more; we nudge them to ensure that they do not splurge most of their money on things that are not needed. 

We tell them that this is the basic amount of savings that you need. We tell them that the new generation does not want to work till 55-60 years of age. Needless to say, they need to save more. So we tell them, of course, again, the savings number. 

Thirdly, people do not realize the power of compounding, and hence, we also ask them to invest in equities or something which is relevant to them and gets the benefits of the power of compounding. 

Lastly, we also try to tell them the benefits of taking things like life insurance early in their lives. Even delaying it by two or three years, the premium numbers increase substantially, which actually creates a big hit on them later on. 

So we tell them the benefits of taking a life insurance policy early on, even if there are no dependents. You’re really providing them with this kind of like high quality, you know, decision-making education and service (for title use)

Q: What is the before and after case of who uses Goal Teller?

He is a man who doesn’t have time, so it is the biggest challenge that he is facing. Therefore, he relies on his parent’s advisor for whatever advice they have been giving. There, the wealth manager also has much time and doesn’t have as much information as he should have. 

Investment management has become very myopic in nature, and hence it leads to a lot of problems. Like inefficient investment, higher costs, and problem-solved liquidity. 

In terms of lifestyle, he might be at the age where he is short on savings and has not much for his retirement, and also he has to consider his security management for his family. So here, time issues and goals are really critical. 

By using a Goal Teller, we can help him out with his goals and plans. We will map out the savings that he needs to save today to ensure his and his family’s goals. What people mistake is they give precedence to kids’ education and their goals over their retirement. 

So we educate people to focus on both of these, the kids’ education and retirement as well. We tell him how much he should save because here, the user is in a state of denial because of a lack of information about how much money they are spending without thinking about how it will impact the future. 

So we tell them Why they should save, how they should save, and where they should save. We inform them to invest in lower spend asset classes. What we want from our clients is to share all the information with us one time and then leave things to us and the technology. If the inflation goes up in the country of studies, we will inform you that you have to save more money for education because the inflation has risen. 

If the person is not here in any circumstance, then we have to change the retirement or pension portfolio. So, all in all, we try to ensure that you give us some time and sit and relax, and we will do everything for you.  

Q: Have you got any inspiring feedback from people after they used Goal Teller?

Yeah, we have got a bunch of them, especially on two aspects. One is the lifestyle aspect, and the other is the cost they would be paying is disproportionately higher than what they should have. 

In fact, people came and told us that because of Goal Teller; their existing wealth managers had become more alert. They also give feedback about the security aspect because not everyone or every wealth manager looks for it. 

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Picture of Author - Jay Sen
Author - Jay Sen

Jay Sen is the founder and co-host of Content Marketing Virtual Summit. His mission is to help bring thought leaders in content marketing together. And to help content writers earn more stable income, they can reach financial freedom.

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Picture of Author - Jay Sen
Author - Jay Sen

Jay Sen is the founder and co-host of Content Marketing Virtual Summit. His mission is to help bring thought leaders in content marketing together. And to help content writers earn more stable income, they can reach financial freedom.

Connect
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