Leveraging Technology
For Online Broking
New data tools will enable brokerages to provide customised investment advice
(From left) Arindam Chanda, ED & Head, Broking, IIFL, Dhiraj Relli, MD & CEO, HDFC Securities,
Kamlesh Rao, MD& CEO, Kotak Securities, and Abhishake Mathur, Senior VP, ICICI Securities
D
igitisation has changed
the way we deal with
finances, and broking
is no exception to
this rule. In the last six to seven
years, online trading has increased
manifold. While this provides a
huge opportunity to brokerages,
the challenge is to leverage newer
technologies and provide in-depth
information to customers.
At a panel discussion titled
‘Online Broking - The E-way to
Growth’ at the Outlook Money
Conclave in Mumbai, Dhiraj
Relli, Managing Director and
Chief Exectuive Officer of HDFC
Securities, said that innovation in
an organisation is never easy, but
brokerages increasingly need to
partner with fintech companies to
provide customised solutions in
their platforms.
“Brokerage houses were not
able to serve the entire length
and breadth of the country. In
smaller towns, there was a need
of more sophisticated tools to
understand the market and get
more information. This is where
personalised tools have evolved to
help the customer achieve his goals
and take informed decisions,” Relli
said. “We are looking at leveraging
different tools like artificial
intelligence, chatbots and machine
learning to ensure that we give the
right kind of advice.”
On the issue of how newer
technologies can improve overall
customer experience, Relli said,
“Both online and offline customers
expect high service standards
and the comparison is not only
within the competitors but across
industries like Uber or any other
e-commerce firms.”
According to Kamlesh Rao, MD
and CEO, Kotak Securities, the
broking firms have a lot to learn
from e-commerce players. “Customer
behaviour is now being shaped by how
we shop online. A customer wants
to compare online before making a
purchasing decision,” he said.
“The financial world is also moving
to this area. The customer wants all the
information to evaluate before making
investments,” he said, adding that
information, therefore, needs to be
presented in a clutter-free format for
the customer to take a decision.
Arindam Chanda, Executive
Director and Head of Broking- India
Infoline Finance Ltd (IIFL), said
that building customer loyalty is a
big challenge for brokerages. “It is
a challenging environment where
you don’t have any control. The only
thing you can do is to understand
the customer. Once a company does
an analysis, it can develop tools like
artificial intelligence and big data to
help retain customers,” he said.
On the subject of new age robot
advisory, Chanda said: ‘’They (robo-
advisors) are already playing an
important role by suggesting portfolios
to customers based on available data.
A hybrid model with some amount
of human intervention will evolve in
times to come,” he added.
The panel concluded that there was
no one-size-fits-all solution. While
discount brokerage houses only offer
a transaction platform, full service
brokerages can provide more value
to customers by leveraging newer
technologies like artificial intelligence
and machine learning, and also by
making sense of the huge amount of
data available to provide customised
investment advice.
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www.outlookmoney.com April 2018 Outlook Money
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