Reliance Money sets sight on global expansion, to double outlets in India

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According to Sudip Bandyopadhyay, CEO, Reliance Money, the company, which is a subsidiary of ADAG's financial arm, Reliance Capital Ltd, plans to expand operations overseas to keep up with India's strong "growth story."

"Reliance Money is going truly global. As we step up the Indian operations, we are also chalking out plans to set up offices in at least seven strategic locations across the globe," Bandyopadhyay said, adding, "We have identified Kuwait, Bahrain and Doha in the Middle East and Singapore and Hong Kong in South Asia to set up offices as early as possible."

The company, which already has a branch in Dubai, is also in the process of setting up its London office in the next six months, as well as an outlet in Muscat, the capital of Oman, within the next couple of months.

"We are in 4,257 locations presently (in India) and plan to enhance our presence to 5,165 centers by this year-end while the total number of outlets will increase to 20,000 (from 10,000) during the period," Bandyopadhyay said, adding that about 7,000 outlets will be opened in Tier-I and Tier-II cities in the next one year.

"More rural outlets would help the company to acquire more customers by making them aware about various products. Large number of customers are now coming from the rural parts of the country and showing interest to know more about equity-related investment products," he said.

"We'll continue to push for expansion," Bandyopadhyay said, speaking at a news conference to announce Reliance Money's tie-up with Canadian firm, Recognia.

"Technical analysis, till date, is a privilege available to institutions and HNIs (high networth individuals) and the Indian retail investors have been deprived of these tools so far," Bandyopadhyay said, adding Recognia will deliver automated interpretation of technical analysis for Reliance Money customers.

The addition of Recognia's sophisticated automated technical analysis as an add-on feature on the platform will provide automated simplified analysis that will inform the customer about shift in trends of different stocks in the markets at one rupee per day, he said.

According to a company official, the value-added service would provide additional revenue stream for the company and it expects about 10-20 percent of its two million customers to use this facility.

The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Reliance Money recently crossed 2 million customer mark within a year of launching its commercial operations on April 11 last year. The company says that it is the fastest two-million customer acquisition in the industry.

Reliance Money has an average daily turnover of Rs.2,000 crore ($500 million), which represents over 4 percent of total turnover at NSE and BSE, the two top stock exchanges in India.