Groww's Lalit Keshre Bats For Enhanced Investment In Infrastructure In Fintech Industry

The biggest area to work on for the fintech industry, as a whole, is investment for infrastructure development, as it is very complicated said Lalit Keshre, co-founder of the fintech platform Groww.

"There is a lot of investment that is needed, infrastructure is very complicated...We have 400 engineers working just to get things perfect because it is the customer's money and that is the promise. Reliability becomes number one promise in roadmap and rest everything is secondary," he said at the NDTV World Summit 2024.

Keshre reflected on the journey of Groww, which started in 2016 during a bull market, when online trading was still emerging. He noted the significant changes in investment patterns across the country, with more individuals now engaging in equity exposure. "We were lucky, but by the way we are, still, penetration wise, very very low," he said, indicating that in comparison to other countries, the market penetration is still low.

"...We compare ourselves with 2016 or 2020 and so, but when we compare with other countries, it still is very low. People are still not beating inflation, retirement problem is still not resolved and so on...there is still long way to go," he said.

Keshre also spoke on concerns about the regulatory landscape, particularly regarding derivatives trading. He acknowledged that while some impact on trading volumes is inevitable, customer protection is paramount. "There are certain things where customer protection is very very important, so from that perspective we are in right direction."

Groww also recently moved its headquarters to India from the US. "Groww is an Indian company, customers are in India, management is in India, all operations are in India, so did not make sense to be outside of India," he said.

On the possibility of an IPO in the future, he said it may happen in some time. "Its somewhere down the line, but we do know when."