Both of them held senior positions in large technology companies, quit their cozy jobs only to take a plunge into the world of entrepreneurship little hesitating to go through the grind of start-up phase that has attracted the frenzy of the new generation. Within a span of few months, Fin1, started by former Infosys Finacle Head Mangipudi Haragopal and ex-Managing Director of Oracle India Sandeep Mathur, is set to launch the first intelligent assistant for capital markets, a platform which is expected to disrupt the way stock market trades happen in the country at present.
"Intelligent Assistant is the next step after internet and mobile in the evolution of the digital consumption of financial services by the consumers" said Haragopal. "An Intelligent Assistant is proactive compared to a passive mobile application. It provides context specific alerts, actionable insights as well as advice - all through a simple and intuitive near natural interactive way" he added.
"The products - finBroker and finAssist - are currently in deployment stage with a few financial institutions," said Haragopal, who was previously instrumental in taking Finacle, the made-in-India banking software products suite from Infosys, across six continents. Finacle is now used by large and midsized banks and financial institutions in over 84 countries.
fin1, which can be installed on any device, including smartphone, tablet or even wearables like Apple Watch, has a card-based application interface, which is highly intuitive and customised to the preferences of the consumer. The solution also acts as an extension to the financial advisor. The advisor can generate trading ideas based on newsfeed, offer customised advice using digital ink and voice, fill up trade execution templates and send both of these to clients in a secure fashion to take action. The customers get this alert in real time, via the application that is there in their handheld devices; they are able to view the advice provided and act on the same with just one touch. In the stock market scenario, where a few seconds' delay can change the market dynamics, this offering enables a near natural interaction with no time lag.
"fin1 is for global consumption and the Indian capital market is one of our early forays. If you look at this space, there are around 800 million banking accounts in India but only 25 million demat accounts. And there are around 200 million smartphones in the country. So we see a huge potential for financial institutions as well as consumers to benefit from such an offering," added Mathur.
After spending over two decades at Infosys where in his last role he was heading Finacle, the universal banking business arm of the company, as a senior VP, Hargopal quit the company last year to pursue his entrepreneurial dream. He subsequently came in contact with Mathur who had just left Oracle where he was heading the US-headquartered software maker's India operations as the managing director.
"I quit in November last year and that was the same time when he (Haragopal) had also resigned. I was playing golf, and meeting a lot of VCs and investors trying to find out what should be my next step when we came in contact towards end of the year. We met in coffee shops and we kept on brainstorming on this idea which we felt could really change the market dynamics," said Mathur.
"I was always excited with the idea that innovation in software would be driven by small and agile start-ups. Here was an opportunity to team up with somebody who had created a world-class product organisation in the past," he added.
Despite coming from large corporations, Haragopal and Mathur have started Fin1 in a modest way. The company has taken a 4000 sq ft space at the upmarket Jayanagar area in the city for the office, which is equally divided into two parts, one dedicated for research and development, and the other as a global client experience centre.
"The key theme of this design is to connect the users of the product directly with the designers to collaborate and enhance the user experience," said Haragopal. Standing workstations, bean bags and balance ball chairs dot the workspace. "There are no cabins or corner offices here, an open environment fosters trust and team bonding," he added.
