 "Dewang Neralla")
No story of the Financial Technologies (FT) group is complete without him. Every Jignesh Shah profile published in the last ten years refers to him as the tech whiz kid who built the flagship transaction software ODIN.
Though he remains in the shadows and holds less than 1% in FT today, Dewang Neralla is very much in thick of things. He tells N Sundaresha Subramanian about his role and how the group will learn and emerge stronger from the crisis:
As a founder promoter of the group and being on board for well over 18 years, what do you think led to this life-threatening event (National Spot Exchange payment crisis) for the group?
I will not consider this a life threatening event, although it is significant. It is difficult for me to analyse the event as I was not involved in any affairs at NSEL. I would not like to comment on what could have led to this as this is under investigation by various agencies.
What was your role in the company, group and its ventures?
As a co-founder of FT, I have been a technologist and have architected exchange and brokerage trading systems. Over the last 5 years, I have been heading and driving a group venture called ‘Atom Technologies’ full-time, which is into electronic payments. Other than this, I have been on boards of some of the companies in the group merely in a non-executive capacity.
You were a director in group firm IBMA and was part of the board meet in which the decision to trade in MCX was taken. This is now under FMC scanner.
As I mentioned earlier, I am on board of certain group companies in the capacity of a non-executive director, which included IBMA as well.
I am no more a director of IBMA. I believe a show cause notice was sent to MCX on the same topic earlier, which I believe has been responded back to by MCX. This is also a subject matter of show cause notice issued to FT by FMC, which will be appropriately replied in due course.
Though your friend Jignesh Shah was the face of the group, as a co founder did you have any view or say on the functioning of the group. Have you expressed your concerns or otherwise to the board or Jignesh personally?
No, as each venture within the group is an independent entity with a separate management team and board, where decisions are decentralized and taken at the individual companies’ level. People from the group leadership team contribute based on their area of expertise whenever required; the same applies to us also.
The areas range from strategy, branding, regulatory support, technology etc. Given this structure was operating as a well-oiled machinery, there was no reason for concerns, especially considering that we have been operating in regulated environments, which itself provides enough checks and balances.
Do you think all of this crisis could have been avoided?
Since I have not been involved at NSEL, it is very difficult to answer at this stage. I feel we should look at the postmortem and create key learnings so that these events do not recur in the future.
Given to you, would you have run FT differently?
When we look in hindsight, we always feel I could have done this way or that way. At every stage, we learn and attempt to improvise as we mature at the organisation level.
What is the road ahead for FT group?
My only request is that this event, although being significant, should be seen as an isolated case given the fact that no other ecosystem venture has been impacted. Markets and technology are and will continue to be a core part of FT's DNA and the company and it's board is fully committed to arriving at a solution for this problem at the earliest.
