Pallavi Jha

Money is always sweeter than honey, and the tangy taste of pickle can indeed tickle anyone’s taste buds. Not surprisingly therefore, Moneypickle, the interactive personal finance portal from Walchand Capital, had enough sweet and sour masala to attract revenue and come out not just unscathed from the dot-com burnout but even managed to come out in the black. Launched in 1999 with an investment of Rs 2 crore, it would have been very easy for Moneypickle to lose its way in the maze of finance portals that cropped up in India during the dot-com bubble. That this did not happen was because of a shift in the portal’s operational model, explains Pallavi Jha, the chairperson and managing director of Walchand Capital, responsible for running Moneypickle.

The shift in operational focus saw Moneypickle positioning itself more as an educational site on financial matters rather than concentrating only on news or other run-of-the-mill features like stock tickers. “What we realised was that there were so many sites with stock news. But being a personal finance site, we were committed to train end consumers on different financial issues as we realised that not only individuals, but even corporate consumers hardly understand many financial terms.” The fee-based model woven around this training aspect not only stood Moneypickle in good stead, but even allowed it to carve out its own niche as the first corporate to provide training on financial markets. It now plans to expand this roster of training.

Even the quality of training Moneypickle provides for retail investors is impeccable. This includes a tie up with the prestigious New York Institute of Finance (NYIF) for training on personal finance issues. The training is not only via online tutorials, but even offline through classroom sessions. According to Jha, 75 percent of training is being currently done offline, with Moneypickle having a panel of 10-12 trainers with financial backgrounds, besides having visiting faculty from NYIF on its trainer roster.

Apart from training, the other revenue stream for Moneypickle comes from its transaction-based model around different credit and investment products. Here it complements the offline financial services activities of Walchand Capital. While Moneypickle sources transactions, they are completed offline. With 300-400 applications being clocked daily and with 60-65 percent of them being genuine, this too has turned out to be a steady, if not spectacular, source of revenue.