BankBazaar plans IPO by 2020; MF products on cards

BankBazaar, a seven-year-old online financial marketplace, plans to go for the initial public offering(IPO) in 2020. It also aims to enter the mutual fund segment in the first quarter of FY2017

In an interaction with Deccan Herald, BankBazaar CEO Adhil Shetty (in pic) said that the company is expecting a ten-fold growth in the traffic.

“At present, we have 5.5 million visitors. If we bring on board 50 million users, then there will be an exponential growth in our platform. We are planning for the IPO by 2020, and has been receiving enquiries from various stock exchanges,” he said.

BankBazaar has three products in investment and savings space like savings accounts, debit cards and fixed deposits. “We are planning to add mutual funds as the fourth product in this segment. We have got a license for mutual fund products and it will be rolled out in the first quarter of FY16. Our MF service will be like a robo adviser. The machine will give you a bouquet of funds that meet your needs,” he said.

“We have introduced the LTAM  (Let us talk about money) programme, as part of our endeavour to reach out to customers. We have YouTube video content and funny ‘meme’, and we have been doing it for the last eight months,” he said.

Commenting on the growing financial inclusion, he said it is an opportunity for the company. “We are ready to look at the language diversity of our country. We have a BPO that is looking at this requirement. But if there is any requirement, we will take it with the management team,” he said.

Thrust to analyticsThe company has around 200 people in the engineering and product side, and 500 in the BPO segment. “We are planning to increase 100 more in the first segment and similar number in the BPO segment. We want to give thrust to our analytics team,” he said.

Bankbazaar CEO also denied any plan to come up with offline stores. “Financial products don’t need touch and feel effect. We can do everything virtually. Our focus is to make all transaction paperless, and our solutions can democratise financial solutions using mobile phone. We want to focus 100% of our energy to come up in this way,” he said.