Hyderabad-based ArthaYantra, was founded by Nitin B Vyakaranam and Sunil Lingareddy to provide personal finance services to the untapped middle income professionals of India. Their aim is not just to curtail unnecessary spending of the people but also make them ready for future financial goals with few clicks of a button.
The company has developed Arthos, an online financial planning platform that replaces traditional human financial advisor and provides holistic financial advice instantly. Today, the company has 20,000 subscribers to service from 500 locations across India. The platform helps individuals to plan, manage and execute finances in achieving their financial goals.
The platform guides the users in fulfilling their financial goals by alerting them about spending and savings. It also provides minute details such as overspending and helps them to save money as well
Talking about the strengths of the platform, Vyakaranam says, “The system connects different aspects of personal finance and provides rightful assistance. A human advisor may have bias or personal motive. For instance, he may recommend an insurance policy that gives him the commissions but it might not be the one really required by the individual. We created the platform through an algorithm that provides rightful financial advice.
“For example, our Arthos solution doesn’t recommend any insurance plans other than term insurance. It strictly says no to endowment plans or ULIPS. Many such practices are integrated in developing the platform to provide right assistance to the individuals.”The platform guides the user in fulfilling the financial goals by alerting him/her about spending and savings. It also provides minute details such as overspending and helps the users to save money as well.
It also guides them in choosing right personal finance investments. “On an average, a professional loses `30,000 per year by choosing wrong personal financial instruments. The application doesn’t let the customer to invest in such wrong schemes.”
Financial planning is mostly limited to urban centers and is catered to upper middle class or the rich. People in the rural India do not have access to quality advice. With the help of Internet, the company is bringing uniformity in providing quality advice across geographies.
“There is a difference in the quality of human advice according to different locations. For example, a customer in Hyderabad may get a better advice as compared to the one in Warangal. Our online platform bridges the gap and doesn’t show any disparity and benefits everyone irrespective of their location.”
When asked about the security of data provided to the application, he says, “We provide bank grade security to our database. All the data is encrypted and tightly secured from any kind of breaches.”
Arthayantra.com has been selected as a Cool Vendor, 2016 by Gartner, a Winner of Red Herring Global Top 100, 2015 and also as one of the most innovative FinTech companies in Asia at FinovateAsia 2013,