From original podcasts to writer-narrated versions of our subscriber newsletters, existing Premium subscribers can listen to all our premium audio, available exclusively via our subscriber apps. Discover them all at the-ken.com/podcasts, including the latest episode of Two by Two.

Not a Premium subscriber? You can subscribe to The Ken Premium on Apple Podcasts for an easy monthly price (Rs 299 in India).

Nirav: In the past, we have had Idea Group, owned by the Birla group, which also owns an asset management company. So the telco-AMC play was always around.

It’s not a new thing. 

[…]

This is clearly not an easy playbook to sell because Idea Group had the largest database at one point, when Vodafone idea was one of the largest networks in India. They also had a very good and thriving asset management business and a very solid brand name in financial services—a trusted brand name—through their insurance business.

Jio is a retail brand. It is not a big financial services brand.

[…]

Manish: I’m saying that users think very differently when it comes to money.

Everyone is investing because they want to make returns on that money. So the primary decision criteria is how much return will I make? Is it a good investment?

You are not going to go and buy gold just because you are getting some freebie with it. You’re not going to buy a house just because you’re getting a freebie with it.

These are very big financial decisions, and they will be driven purely based on what returns are possible.

It’s very different to sell a telecom product, where the benefits are immediate and measurable, than to sell an investment. The way to sell it is very, very different.

So cross selling with the same sales force is very difficult.

Praveen: Can Reliance build the Robinhood of India?

Create like, say, an investment club, share portfolios, make people compete on returns… It’s called gamification.

Manish: Should we build a Robinhood for India?

When we talk of Reliance coming into this space, I would think more in terms of first-time investors, because existing investors are well-served already.

Now, these new investors in mutual funds and stocks, should they be lured by a gamified approach?

What Robinhood did was, they just made it very fancy, with confetti and social sharing. And by the way, most of this is not allowed by SEBI—gamification, leaderboard, incentive to trade, etc. 

Secondly, if you do it, you’re going to turn these first-timers from savers into speculators. 

I’m all for the free market. But we have to be very careful if someone as big as Reliance is opening up these channels to a large number of first-time investors.