Banking On Technology

Way back in 2008, when Arjun Shetty and his wife Rati, both working in Seattle, USA, were exploring various options which included relocating to India, they started looking for financing avenues for setting up their home in Chennai.

- Nikhil Raghavan

“We found the system to be laborious. We had to go from pillar to post to get things done and for the simplest of procedures, the paperwork involved was voluminous. This set us thinking. Was it so difficult for the common man to get a housing loan or for that matter, any financial aid to help him achieve his dreams? Maybe that period was the kickoff point when Rati and I said to ourselves that there is an opportunity in this realm to start something which will make life less hard for the common man,” recalls Arjun, who was then working for Amazon. Rati was with Kraft Foods.

Arjun conferred with his brother Adhil who was also in the US with Deloitte; Adhil decided to come over and start the groundwork for a possible venture. The seed was sown and BankBazaar.com germinated on a fertile soil devoid of other effective online facilities in the sphere of banking, insurance, and investment options. Teaming up with them right at the inception stage and continues to be an integral part of the core management team is Iype Isac, formerly with Microsoft, a classmate of Adhil.

Rati says, “At the time of our forming the company, such an online facility was quite unheard of, especially in the realm of seeking for loans, shopping for insurance policies or checking out investment options in products like Mutual Funds. The brick and mortar options through agents and dealers as well as physically going to the institutions and filling out reams of forms, were the norms. When we mooted our idea, even the financial institutions were sceptical. Offline methods were ingrained into the psyche of the common man and largely, the agents’ influence led to decision-making.”