Rakesh Wadhwa:

Urban India and Rural India or Bharat, as most people prefer to call it, appear to be two distinct worlds ,yet they're so tied with each other for collective success of the country and growth of the country. Can you tell us, about what the distinct differences that you have seen in rural India with respect to financial management, financial planning, as compared to urban India?

 

Bindu Ananth:

There are many things similar. The financial services industry is failing both the open Indian as well as the rural Indian, given sort of the product and cookie cutter approach, you and I don't have access to the kind of good advice that we'd like, instead, even if you do have a wealth manager. It is really somebody who is a product marketing person. That's very clear. That's what the goal is. It's not truly a wealth manager in the sense that we talked about.

So there are many things in common. Particularly the fact that we don't have access to good advice, good institutions that are looking out for us. The concern is always, or what is this session? Be careful not walking to this trap. So many of us have been sold bad, life insurance policies that are not appropriate for us with very high lapsation rates on and so forth. The things that are different, the number one thing is that, if you are a salary person versus somebody who has seasonal income is just a fundamentally different challenge. Because imagine if I told you that, your new, Kind of salary structure is that you get paid all of your salary, instead of every month I will pay you at the beginning of the year. Same amount, but I paid you one shot that completely changes the dynamics of your money management challenge, because now you've got to take that lump sum and your expenses are continuous. Expenses are everyday, and it peaks around certain school fee season and festival season. So stretching that money for that full year is a fundamentally different and stressful challenge. And that is what rural India lives and breaths. And you end up, getting a lot of distress because you run out of money, there is no salary to fall back. But otherwise many of the core issues at the scene, what are good avenues for us to save, to invest? How do we access really good risk management instruments rather than, insurance. One of my major concerns with microinsurance is that they are selling sachet insurance. Just like thy sell shampoo.  A bottle for the urban India and a sachet for the rural India. They are selling insurances of Rs 10,000 which is not sufficient for a rural person.