David Justin Urbas - The Future of Finances

The basic principles of personal finance are familiar, widely applicable, and not really subject to change. No matter who you are or what you do, you know it’s important to spend less than you earn, avoid high-interest debt that doesn’t produce a measurable return on investment, diversify your investments, and plan for the future.

It’s nice that these and other personal finance guidelines are so well established, even if they’re not always followed to the letter. But their familiarity can be a double-edged sword. When you feel like you’ve heard it all before, it’s easy to tune out valuable financial advice that can improve your financial security and help you avoid costly mistakes.

More at: http://www.moneycrashers.com/reimagine-personal-finance-future-tips-capxtalk/

Financial Advisors Should Ask: What Would Amazon Do?

Amazon used big data to revolutionize how people buy everything from books to blenders. Now the power of cloud computing and big data analytics is set to revolutionize wealth management, letting financial advisors know which of their clients they should love (those who are profitable now) and which they should lust after (those who have more potential).

Too few financial advisors know what their customers are doing with all of their money or understand their real potential. Data and analytics can give advisors information to win with the best customers. It’s like giving someone a map of where all the Pokémon are hiding.

More at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/richdaly/2016/09/27/financial-advisors-should-ask-what-would-amazon-do/#684669c4a495

China is an outlier, with higher income-expense thrift

In June last year, one in four mobiles used in India was a smartphone, up from one in five just six months earlier. Add in two more facts—India boasts the world’s fastest-growing large economy, and the planet’s biggest population of millennials—and you can see why the likes of Facebook, Amazon, Uber and Google are falling over themselves to establish footholds here. Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder, has publicly stated that he wants India to be his second-largest market, after America, and has backed his plans with billions of dollars of investment.

 More at: http://www.forbesindia.com/article/sp-jain-school-of-global-management/china-is-an-outlier-with-higher-incomeexpense-thrift/44173/1

IFMR Capital: The money conductors

Paramesan Gowda, 48, has been running a makeshift sandwich stall outside the BSE for many years. Given his humble business, he is not the typical customer to whom traditional bankers feel inclined to lend. With its overemphasis on paper work and address proofs, India’s banking and financial services system is not primed to give him credit. Hence, despite being in the heart of India’s financial nerve centre, Dalal Street, Gowda for long lingered beyond the fringes of the financial system, deprived of any formal channels of credit to grow his sales.

More at: http://www.forbesindia.com/article/hidden-gems-2016/ifmr-capital-the-money-conductors/44241/1

Janalakshmi Financial Services: Let's get 'physital'

Jalakshmi Financial Services, set up in Bengaluru in 2008 by former Citibank senior executive Ramesh Ramanathan and his wife Swati, was started with a simple mandate: To run a scalable business that provides small loans to low-income borrowers in urban India. With over 5 million customers currently, borrowing on average between Rs 15,000 and Rs 50,000, it has stayed the course.

What has helped is Janalakshmi’s awareness that technology would play a vital role. To that end, the non-banking financial company (NBFC) embraced technology early in its life, deploying, among other things, a core banking software in its commencing year. This provides software modules to run most parts of a bank’s operations.

More at: http://www.forbesindia.com/article/hidden-gems-2016/janalakshmi-financial-services-lets-get-physital/44271/1