Vikash Agarwal, Co-Founder CAGRfunds
Vikash Agarwal is the co-founder of CAGRFunds, a “phygital” (physical cum digital) wealth management venture catering to various financial requirements of its clients. CAGRFunds offers customized services for end-to-end portfolio planning with focus on Goal Based Investing, Wealth creation through SIPs, Tax Planning and Surplus Cash Management.
At CAGRfunds, Vikash is responsible for creating the vision of the company, explore new opportunities and foster new partnerships. Vikash is also actively involved in supervising operations and accelerating business development. He is a Chartered accountant by profession and has also completed his CFA from CFA, USA. In conversation with Dominic Rebello, Vikash says he focuses on educating and empowering as many individuals as possible by creating awareness about investing and the importance of a formal financial system.
What is the idea behind CAGRfunds?
The idea behind CAGRfunds is to democratise investments for the billions in the country. Even today less than 2% of our population have access to financial savings. We want to reach out to the millions of Indians who are not getting the right advice to plan their investments. Our tag line says about our greater mission “let us grow together” where we want all the stakeholders which includes our customers, employees shareholders etc. to reap the benefits of our inclusive growth together. The greater impetus from our side is to make people financially independent by helping them not only invest in the right financial products but also to educate them about the importance of saving.
Your views on the current market scenario?
It is very difficult to predict market movements; however one thing is certain that the present market is not cheap on valuations. Sensex is trading at a PE multiple of 23.7 trailing 12 months earnings. So we are advising our clients to bring their asset allocation to their target allocation according to their risk profile. We are categorically asking clients not to get lured by the over enthusiasm in the market and take unwanted long positions in the equity market for short term gains.
Tell us about goal based investing?
Goal based investing is an approach in which we suggest our clients to link their investments to their financial goals. We suggest our clients to identify their long term and short term goals and accordingly link their investments. The advantage of such an approach is that a person overcomes a lot of behavioural biases which may have triggered wrong decisions given the cyclical nature of the market. It also helps the investor make focused investments to fulfill a particular goal / objective. We are in the process of developing a goal bases tracker which can help them link their investments to their goals and help them track the progress.
How are you different from others?
Today, we feel that people want to access their investments at click of a button. We have created one of the most convenient online paperless platform for execution of transactions for our clients. The platform helps them invest, redeem and track their portfolio at no transaction cost. We have kept the account as free so that more and more people adopt the financial saving route. We have created an algorithm which helps us select the best funds and our online platform helps to switch funds if required without any documentation. We have also integrated tax planning within our offering.
Where do you see yourself five years down the road?
5 years down the line we see ourselves driving the objective of financial inclusion with a significant presence in tier 1 and 2 cities and reaching out to tier 3 and tier 4 cities. We shall continue to focus on educating and empowering as many individuals as possible by creating awareness about investing and importance of formal financial system. We want to expand our services to all the cities of the country and ensure that access to financial services is available to everyone at an affordable cost. In addition to driving financial inclusion, we will be launching features will make the portfolio management part more scientific and automated.