Can we get introduced to the Founders of Scripbox? (with their Education & Work backgrounds)
Sanjiv Singhal is a Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Scripbox. With a passionate focus on user experience, Sanjiv has been instrumental in conceiving and building the Scripbox service.

With over 25 years of experience in operating at the intersection of finance and technology, he has a deep understanding of how technology and behavioural finance can be combined to deliver better personal finance outcomes for consumers.

Sanjiv has previously held leadership positions in financial institutions such a Citibank, ABN AMRO Bank and Kotak Mahindra and technology pioneers like CyberCash. He has played an active role in building wealth management, retail banking and internet payments systems for financial institutions in UK, Europe, Southeast Asia and Japan.

Sanjiv holds a MBA from Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore and a B Tech in Mechanical Engineering from National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra.

Ashok Kumar E R is the CEO & Co-founder of Scripbox. He drives the business direction at Scripbox. Ashok rallies himself and the entire organization towards Scripbox’s customers dream come true by making the offerings simple, jargon free, and investor friendly.

Ashok has 20 years of strong track record in building customer centric businesses. He has held various leadership positions in IT, Telecom and Hitech companies such as Wipro, Intel, Airtel, Nortel and Cisco.

Ashok holds a Management degree from Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode and a B.E. in Computer Engineering from Thiagarajar College of Engineering, Madurai.

What is the Vision behind the idea of Scripbox? How did it originate?

We launched Scripbox with the aim to make personal finance less intimidating. We came across countless examples of individuals who were too scared to talk about money, talk about their goals, and were clueless about their financial future. We also, came across many who had fallen prey to inappropriate advice about investing their hard-earned money. We realised that youngsters, especially were not able to take charge of their financial future. Add to this, use of financial jargons just make the whole experience extremely daunting for the average individual. To solve for all of this, we launched Scripbox, a friendly service to make saving, investing, and wealth creation simple for absolutely any one.




What were the key challenges and bottlenecks faced in the Journey of Scripbox?

From a customer acquisition perspective, as a financial services company, awareness about investing in an inflation-beating and long term wealth creating instrument such as mutual funds is a challenge. From how to save to how to invest, education and handholding is required every step of the way. The available content and information is full of jargon and daunting even for the informed investor, and hence, discouraging for most individuals - a big challenge even today. Thus, enabling trust in the asset class itself is a key challenge.

From an industry-perspective, making sign up processes completely paperless is a big draw for customers especially, the millennial digital-savvy ones. The industry as it were, was not ready for a digital company like ours, an early mover in the space. This is rapidly changing; KYC takes a few days to process, instant payment platforms such as UPI, among others are narrowing the gap between sign up and purchasing the first MF unit - a major win for customers.

What is your philosophy when it comes to doing business?

Unwavering focus on doing right by the customer. This involves keeping things simple, jargon-free and completely transparent for our customers. We don’t annoy our customers, employ intelligent mechanisms to communicate with them. We tell our customers exactly what they are buying and are accountable as an organization. We put our money where our mouth is - we also invest our money with Scripbox.

What differentiates Scripbox from other Investing platforms?

Scripbox takes its customers through a journey, right from learning about personal finance, investing, financial goals, and how they can start investing to achieve long term goals such as children’s education and retirement planning.

What was the Go-To Market Strategy at the time of inception in the already competitive Wealth Management market?

Existing wealth management industry addresses a small percentage of working population and very few have access to reliable and transparent financial services and solutions. The challenge was to not only make customers aware but also make them trust us with their money. Our go-to-market strategy was thus, positioning Scripbox as a platform that gives confidence to first time investors to start their wealth creation journey as well as an option for seasoned investors to explore for seamless, simplified, sophisticated, and completely transparent approach to investing.






How do you plan to face the ever-rising competition from the Payment players entering the segment as well?

Competition helps to expand the market, which is great and what the industry needs. But it is the advice, education and awareness part that is critical and tough to crack. MFs are highly regulated retail products that can give good returns. However, investment choices are many, information about them is also available, but knowledge about them is limited. How does the customer decide? Simplifying for the customer and doing right by them is what we focus on.
Scripbox is a simple, jargon-free product that anybody can adopt. Success of our journey lies in the fact that 70% of our customers are first time MF investors, which shows that what we are trying to do is working. We don’t push people to join. We understand that there is a gestation period in decision making when comes to finance. We let people take their time, read our blog and understand for themselves that this is right for them. So, there are less people leaving Scripbox.

We have been recognised as the 2nd most influential financial services brand globally by LinkedIn, thanks to our jargon-free content our community size is over 2 million.

Would you like to share some statistics of Scripbox? (with respect to total number of Users on the platform, Amount of Wealth being managed, etc.)

· Rs 950 Cr+ wealth trusted with us

· 70% customers are first-time investors

· 2 million+ investment transactions

· Customers across 1250+ cities and towns

. 28% women investors

Which are the cities Scripbox is operational in? Are there any expansion plans on the cards?

Absolutely anyone with a smartphone and Internet connection can use Scripbox. We are an online-only platform with customers residing in 1250+ cities and towns across India.

What is your message for the Entrepreneurship enthusiasts?

Be customer-obsessed. Without a sustainable and scalable business model it is not possible to gain the customer’s trust. Lastly, learn to differentiate between vanity and sanity.For more information of Scripbox, visit their Website | App download link: App
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