Stock market to crypto trading: Millennials log in for tips to handle money

A booming stock market, bite-sized information and documentary-style courses on apps are stirring interest in learning about finance among a tech-savvy generation

As the stock market reached dizzying heights, the number of subscribers on LearnApp climbed up, too. Funded by Rainmatter Foundaion, the app that offers financial education nearly tripled its subscribers from 70,000 in 2020 to 200,000 today.

A million others also visited the platform, glancing through free lessons on stock and crypto investing by industry leaders, and this year the company aims to reach five million people.

“We have grown by 300 per cent in revenue since calendar 2020, and the projected turnover for 2021 is predicted to be 350 per cent of what it was last year,” says founder and CEO Prateek Singh. 

The quest to teach people about the dry concept of finance has taken a decisive turn over the past year. From the somnolent PowerPoint presentations, it has moved to bite-sized information, documentary-style videos, and pop quizzes that are making the lessons more engaging, stirring an interest in learning financial skills.

On Basis, a fintech platform for urban women, the communities on cryptos and investing are sometimes buzzing way past midnight, with eager investors sharing their thoughts on market movements and deciphering trends.

Basis started sometime in 2019, and has over 100,000 women on its platform, mostly Gen Z and millennials. Some of its members are college students who want to know about managing their money better so they could have their finances sorted by the time they are 30. And there are others who just want to learn about budgeting or plans to generate passive income. One can even seek help on their spending problem!

“On an average our members are able to save 40 per cent of their earnings after joining the platform,” says Dipika Jaikishan, the co-founder and chief operating officer. This is mostly done by streamlining their spending and investment decisions with the help of experts, who are also women. The app follows a subscription model — Rs 9,000 for an annual subscription— but there is plenty to learn for casual members, too, including articles that are deliberately kept simple and free of moneyspeak.

“We wanted to create a safe space for women to learn about finance in a manner that’s convenient to them and tailored to their specific needs,” says Jaikishan.

By roping in experts and ensuring quality of content, apps like Basis and LearnApp are bringing order to a space currently dominated by free online videos.

Most of the courses on LearnApp, for instance, are offered by industry leaders such as Raamdeo Agrawal, chairman, Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd, BSE CEO Ashish Chauhan, Edelweiss Asset Management Ltd CEO Radhika Gupta, and Utpal Sheth, CEO of Rakesh Jhunjhunwala’s Rare Group. “When an industry leader teaches, their only motivation is to give back to society,” says Singh. “They are not looking to make money from the users.”

These courses are not designed in the manner of a lecture.

LearnApp focuses on storytelling through high-quality videos that have the appeal of a well-made documentary. So a video might open from a scene from Big Shots and then segue into diversification without the learner trying very hard to stay focused. LearnApp conducts a 45-minute workshop every day followed by a Q&A session. This has resulted in 51 per cent of those enrolling for a course ending up completing it, the highest in the industry, according to Singh. "We also provide actionable results. It is not something you learn today and wait for 20 years to grow your money," he adds.

In his view, the old way of wealth creation by plodding through years to create a retirement corpus does not appeal to today’s generation. They want to be in charge of their financial destiny rather than relying on financial advisors or, often in the case of women, on their family members.

Although the number of women on LearnApp is still in single digits even though there is a woman among its founders (Swati Sharma), they are finding community on women-only apps such as Basis or LXME, which are not focused on stock investing alone.

Most of LearnApp’s subscribers are engineer-types from cities with a huge concentration of young, tech-savvy population such as Pune, Bengaluru and Mumbai. But plans are afoot to expand its reach further to regional markets with content in Hindi and at least two other Indian languages, and then take it even further to the US by next year.

For Rs 375 a month, its members can get access to any number of courses and have their queries answered in real time.

The growing interest in financial learning has prompted even the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) to start a programme called SMARTs, or Securities Market Trainers. People have to simply write to Sebi and it will conduct the training programme in areas related to the securities market for free anywhere in the country.

The shift in the way people think about money is most visible on YouTube, where financial videos have soared in popularity. Akshat Srivastava, an INSEAD graduate, started a channel 10 months ago, and his videos about such topics as “Five Smart Ways I Grow My Money”, and “Why I Invested 25 Lakh” in this stock have quickly amassed 415,000 followers. Many of his videos focus on everyday questions that middle-income India grapples with, like renting versus buying or how many stocks should one buy, which he explains in a basic, easy-to-understand manner. Srivastava credits his success to research. His goal is to make content that his toddler son can be proud of.

All this is great news for a country where only 27 per cent are financially literate, but one still needs discernment when learning from free videos on YouTube, where not all content is of value.