In this episode of The Connector Podcast recorded at Swiss WealthTech Live, host Koen Vanderhoydonk interviews Shrikant Tewari, partner and co‑founder of the Indian wealth‑tech firm Valufy. Tewari explains how Asian cultures, traditionally rooted in savings, are rapidly converting that savings into systematic investment plans (SIPs) and mutual funds, creating a massive liquidity pool that now supports Indian equity markets. He estimates that only 5‑10% of the population currently uses SIPs, with a realistic upside to 25% in the coming years, which could dramatically expand market depth. Tewari contrasts this trajectory with Europe, noting that while Europe has a more mature advisory (IFA) market, it lags in technology adoption. Valufy aims to bridge this gap by offering a cloud‑based, SaaS “wealth‑in‑a‑box” platform that can serve IFAs, wealth managers, and family offices, leveraging the technology lead in Asia to capture European opportunities. The conversation also touches on the curated nature of the Wealth Mosaïque event, its diverse audience, and the serendipitous networking it enables. Throughout, the tone remains conversational and optimistic about the growth of wealth‑tech across both continents.
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Welcome to the Connector Podcast, an ongoing conversation connecting fintechs, banks, and regulators worldwide. Join CEO and founder Coen van der Hooijdonk as you learn more about the latest available trends and solutions in the markets.
Welcome to another podcast, and together with me I have Srikanth. And Shrikant is from India, but lives here for a while in Europe. But what is super interesting, and before you actually introduce yourself, Shrikant has a very particular view on what's happening in the wealth management industry in Asia. So he's happy to share that with us. Shrikant, very welcome in this podcast. Can you explain who you are, where you work for, and so on?
Sure, thank you, Koen, for inviting me to this great podcast. My name is Shrikant, Shrikant Tewari, and I'm a partner at Valufy. I co-founded this company With two of my co-founders, we are ten-year-old. We are an Indian wealth tech company. I think India is a name which is getting its reciprocation from all corners of the world for all good things. And I can tell you, not only India, the entire Asia is shifting. And I would not shy away from saying the continental or the global balance is shifting as we speak. India. I grew up in India.
Whereabouts in India?
I'm from the north part of India. It's a city called Jaipur, a very historical city. Comes as a part of the Golden Triangle tourism attraction globally. And when we as Indians grew up, not with investments, we as Indians grew up with savings. And I think you must have heard all across the board, that Asian cultures, whether it's Chinese, Indian, Southeast Asian, is about savings because it's cultural to us that you earn and you save. We were introduced, when I say we Indians, and I'm very, very sure most of the Asians were introduced to savings pretty early in the childhood by parents, by grandparents. And it's occasion, every festival, Mm-hmm. You know, your elder one gives you some money and then with that money they tell you, you spend some and you save some. So I'm telling you, it's so ingrained in our culture to save. Now, why this conversation of saving is so important? You know, we are talking about wealth, not saving, right? This is the thing. Asians were born with savings and this culture, and all of a sudden their per capita income started rising. If you look at the global averages in terms of the incomes in technology industry, in hospitality, in various service industries in India, Mm-hmm. Or China or Southeast Asia is increasing. And with the ingrained savings culture, they were saving a lot and they were putting that money earlier in banks. But in the last 10 years, a big trend shifted. I think it's a combination of digital, combination of products getting introduced, combination of regulator getting more and more standardized and bringing global culture of investment. So I'll just talk about one simple thing, one single simple thing which totally changed the India And the way they look at investments, it's it's called mutual funds. सही है. It's a campaign in in the local language, which basically talks about that if you put your money systematically, which is called systematic investment plan. If you go to India and ask any person how do you invest, he's going to tell you I invest in SIP.
In SIP.
SIP. What is SIP? It's very simple. It's systematic investment plan. The regulator and the entire industry came behind it. Just like the connector, they created an environment where the entire industry is promoting the culture of investing in SIP, right?
Mm-hmm.
And everybody started from savings, a culture of putting the money in the bank to investing in funds. And there are all kinds of funds. Now, this phenomenon totally changed India in the last 5, 7 years. You look at it, in fact, If you look at the news, the coverage for the last 5, 7 years, whenever there is a foreign institution selling Indian markets, Indian markets are directly proportional going down. While today, from the last few months, I've been hearing foreign institutional investors are selling and the market is just going up. Why? There is an excess of liquidity. There is so much of normal people investing in SIP. The money is all going into the mutual funds and then it's coming into the market, giving a great support. I may be wrong on the number, but there are billions of SIPs which are already being locked by common people and all that money is flushing in the market. Now, the interesting part about probably what I learned about living in Asia and living now in the last 3 years in London, everybody do investments. in London or mostly continental Europe. They've been doing it. And that's why the industry is so flourished. In India, still, we don't have more than 4, 5, 6, 7, less than 10% people doing the SIP. Now, the bigger market could be as high as 25%. Now, just imagine in the next few years when all these people and the generational shift is happening and they start investing like this, The market is going to explode, and we can see the effect of it. That's why you know the local companies, the equity IPOs don't have to look out. There is there is so much of liquidity to you know support the entire market. Now this is what I was talking about: Asian economies are phenomena, a savings phenomena through technology and through through this whole market ecosystem. converting into a wealth phenomenon. And that is where companies like us exist, Valify, which is trying to build a wealth proposition, work with banks, and kind of deepen this proposition across the board. So we work with multiple markets, India, Southeast Asia, Singapore, Dubai. So yeah, just wanted to give you a real background.
That's super insightful. I'm just wondering, Srikanth, how does it actually apply to what you have seen in Europe? Since you said you're here in London for the last 3 years, have you seen any similarities? Have you seen any complete differences?
Well, let me talk about 2 similarities here. And I think the common denominator of that similarity is the technology. I think the markets in Asia and the markets in Europe are a different curve when it comes to the behavior of retail people or HNIs or what we're calling now today in the event today, it's very interesting conversation about generational shift of wealth. But there is a common denominator in industry which is called technology. And that's the phenomenon I see. That's the only phenomenon I see Asia is ahead. And I would not shy away from saying probably Europe The sector in the parts of Europe is catching up. But this is where I see an opportunity because in the market where I live now in London, if you don't have at least 500,000 quids, it's difficult or almost close to impossible for you to find a financial advisor because the IFA market it's so difficult to service individual investor and get proper advice. While there is a presence of phenomena of saving, investing, pensions and all of that, but the whole IFA sector is kind of struggling with not having a total ecosystem. Because, and why, what's the reason? Because I think the sophistication of the market happened and everybody built, you know, the technologies are built for the purpose, right? But at the same time they get obsolete. So they totally do not build the technology from a digital point of view. And I think that's the arbitrage we see that in Europe, which is a developed market, there is so much which can be done by technology companies to bring, you know, kind of a platform approach or kind of a solution boxed approach for different segments like IFA, like wealth managers, multifamily offices, single-family offices. And that's what Valify is trying to do. You know, we are bringing wealth in a box and try to bring a cloud and SaaS approach to an enterprise technology. So far we have seen that when it comes to wealth technology, or I think we, we spoke about in just one session in the event about where SingPost in SaaSkanda was talking about kind of creating a SaaS technology in the core banking. The same thing we are trying to achieve because creating an end-to-end open architecture wealth platform which can fit into an IFA and wealth management market, but it's also superior in a technology, will bring down the cost, will bring down the entire connectivity between advisor and their audience. I think that's what I see the arbitrage between Asia being ahead in technology, behind in the investment curve, and I think the other way around in Europe. So I think that's the kind of thing I see in Europe.
Well, time flies when you're having fun. That's what they say sometimes. We're getting towards the end of this conversation, and I was wondering if you could give me some insights from the event itself. We're today at Swiss Wealth Tech Live, organized by Wealth Mosaïque. What have been your findings so far?
Being leading, you know, growth and sales for a fintech organization, it's my responsibility and natural choice to be in a lot of events all over Dubai, Singapore, London, and many places. I think I've been in touch with Stephen for a very long time. What I like about this event is the curation he has done. You know, it's not, these topics have been chosen very carefully. It's not very one-sided.
Very important.
Yeah, it's not one-sided that all day we are talking about wealth, you know, the kind, and he's, I mean, I personally like content-oriented, you know, topics. And second thing, which I think I'll give hats off to him or his team or Wealth Mosaic as a platform that they're able to bring the diversities, you know, like I just bumped into you, it's a great, great discovery for me because this was a problem which was there parked in my mind, but I never thought a solution like the Connector existed, you know.
So thank you.
And I've met, met almost half a dozen different kind of diversified crowd. So I find the whole event is very curated, content-oriented, and the selection of the audience is very mixed up so they can, they can make what you call in sales world, you know, proper matches, you know.
Serendipity.
Yeah, serendipity. That's the best word for it.
Yeah.
So I think that's what I will give. I think half of the event is still left, so probably we'll have more good things to look at. So yeah.
Absolutely. Srikanth, it was really amazing to have you like on a last, very last minute sort of podcast interview, but it has been amazing. Thank you for sharing your insights. Thank you also for the audience. And let's stay tuned because more news to come from this marvelous event. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Koen. Thank you. It was lovely, you know, chatting with you in this podcast. Look forward.
Thank you. Thank you.
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