ArthaYantra: Your Investment Jeeves

A personalised wealth management service that uses technology to provide goal-based financial planning

When Nitin Vyakaranam moved to Hyderabad after working for many years in the US, one of his first financial transactions was the purchase of a unit- linked insurance plan. He didn’t need one. It was recommended by a friend, an insurance agent. He soon realised that the product was not suited to his long-term financial objectives. Closer observation revealed that product- focused investment advice and sales was the norm in the financial sector, flying right in the face of goal-based financial planning.

Realising the huge disservice to investors in such an approach, finance technocrat nitin, alumnus of Indian School of Business (ISB) and northern Illinois University, decided to do some- thing about it. His tool? Technology. nitin decided he wanted to create an automated process for high calibre wealth management based on goal- focused financial planning. It was to be transparent, unbiased, customised and easily accessible at a nominal cost. This led to the birth of Arthos, a patented online financial planning platform, in 2012, the only one of its kind in India, and nitin named his venture ArthaYan- tra or wealth tool.

Today, ArthaYantra has over 70,000 customers across 600-plus cities and towns in India and in 30 countries around the world. Clients can access customised financial advisory services for just Rs. 1,000 per year. Quality is tightly controlled, and the best exper- tise in financial planning and wealth management worldwide is harnessed. This knowledge is leveraged through technology to deliver custom-made solutions.

ArthaYantra employs financial econo- metrics to sift out the most risk-efficient portfolios—low beta, high alpha—that promise market-beating returns. It presently has over 60 such multi-dimen- sional portfolios that can be married to individual financial needs. This is essential service. As Nitin points out, “We had one customer with 36 insurance policies who was still under-insured.”

Not just advisory, ArthaYantra also helps in fulfilment. The focus is mostly on mutual funds as investment vehicles. The advisory team helps customers in- vest according to their individual portfo- lio needs. Where assets like realty make a good portfolio inclusion, ArthaYantra uses its network of scrutinised and certified partners across cities to assist with on-ground transaction completion, under the guidance of the personal investment advisor.

ArthaYantra’s novel approach has seen it increasingly draw more and more high-networth customers in recent times. A large number of these are high- paid professional managers (C-level executives) who desire quality and unbiased advice on their wealth man- agement. There are also many wealthy individuals with personal wealth advi- sors who look for validation of their investment plans through ArthaYantra’s transparent financial tools.

As they say, when it comes to wealth, you like to be in control no matter how much money you have. ArthaYantra is helping Indians do just that—manage their wealth themselves, smartly.

WHAT ARTHAYANTRA OFFERS:

– Sign-up on its online financial planning platform, Arthos, for FREE
– High calibre and transparent Wealth Management advisory for Rs. 1,000/year• Fulfilment services at no cost to the investor
– Access to high-performance portfolios created through rigorous financial econometric modelling

WISDOM BYTES: Nitin Vyakaranam, Founder and CEO, ArthaYantra:

– The approx. 2,500 financial planners in the country can’t service the wealth management needs of over approx. 300,000 high networth investors.
– The quality and calibre of the wealth manager in different branches of a bank is unlikely to be the same. This is how the quality of advice available offline starts getting graded.
– Our scope of relationship and nature of service is not determined by the size of a transaction or portfolio. There is no economic discrimination.
– While the average age of wealth management customers in India is about 45 years, over 80% of our customers are under 45 years and we have many high networth clients with varied financial goals.

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