Time for freedom of financial information – BR interviews Mir Mohammad Alikhan
By: Business Recorder 
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“We are wiping out the monopoly over information and the lack of structured knowledge from financial markets,’ Co-chairman, AMZ MAK Capital Limited”
Mir Mohammad Ali khan is an internationally renowned investment banker, entrepreneur and capital markets advisor. After leading an illustrious career as an investment banker, he founded AMZ MAK Capital. That company recently took over the internet-based startup, InvestorGuide360. In a recent interaction with BR Research, Ali khan discussed the vision of the budding enterprise and what it means for investors and the industry.
BR Research: Tell us about the motivation behind taking the helm at InvestorGuide360.
Mir Muhammad Ali Khan: Many years back when I began my career on Wall Street, the world was witnessing a transfer from manual operations to technology-based operations. As brokers, we used to take orders from our clients over the phone; then we would fill out a ticket and hand it to a runner. The runners would scurry over to the trading desk who would then execute the trade on behalf of the clients.
When the world’s first internet browser, Netscape was released, it brought the whole new world of the internet to us and everyone else. From there, internet-based companies like Amazon, Ebay and Tradewatch were introduced. So, we witnessed this whole transition both as users and in terms of its far-reaching impacts on the financial industry. The experiences we gained and learnt from as a result of having been involved in that transition brought many insights regarding the right use of technology in the financial sector.
Then I shifted to Dubai and founded a company that specialized in incubating tech companies. There I realized that the technological transformations of the West have slowly but surely spread to that part of the world and resulted in significant advancements for their economies. So, when I move to Pakistan, I was on the lookout for an opportunity to introduce similar innovations in the domestic market here.
It was during that time that I met with Baqar Abbas Jafri. At that time, his platform was providing research to stakeholders in the equity markets. In our initial discussions we explored the opportunities for bringing about a technological revolution in Pakistan’s financial industry. As our plans converged, I decided to take over the company and helping it access the investments needed to make it grow and progress towards the goals that we have envisioned.
Arif Muhammad Al-Zarouni, who is a long-time close friend of mine, joined our endeavour. His business interests span all over the Middle East and other parts of the world, but he shares our passion for technology so he agreed to own this vision and help in its realisation. That is how the current arrangement came into being.
BRR: In terms of services, what are the future plans for InvestorGuide360? How do you plan to expand and scale the business?
MAK: At present, there is no single platform where a common person can go to gain knowledge regarding capital markets, financial markets; insurance, banks. The answer is none; although Bloomberg exists, it is intended for a clientele that is already engaged in these sectors and has a high level of understanding of how the industry works. Thompson Rueters and Nielson are in a similar category. These are the Formula One cars of the financial industry. Everyone likes them, but not all can drive them.
So, we intend to expand our services for the common investors and savers all the entire GCC and connect all those markets. Then we are also linking up with social media platforms. Quite simply, when you want to interact with friends; you use Facebook; when you want to follow people, you go to Twitter. But, there is no platform for sharing opinions regarding investments, even though there is abundant information.
Our platform will allow people to access this data, while interacting with those who can help them learn more and make more informed investment decisions. On the other hand, this is a useful platform for gathering public opinion and gauging investor sentiment regarding particular stocks or deposit schemes offered by banks, etc.
BRR: Why did you start this idea from Pakistan?
MAK: There are a number of reasons behind our decision to being from here. The most obvious reasons are that development costs are relatively low here, while abundant talent is available. Then there is the fact that this is a small market, so one has room on the development side to experiment with different ideas. In the larger, more competitive markets, this luxury cannot be afforded.
In Pakistan, there is a lot of information available but it is all scattered. For our company that presents an opportunity to collect, collate and organize the information from different sources and present it summarily. For example, the Karachi Stock Exchange receives all filing but a regular person has no way of going back and finding out what was the interest of futures contracts at a certain time and date, or how many of the trades executed on a date were above 20,000 shares or below 300 shares, etc.
There is an ocean of information that we shall make available to people who otherwise had no way of accessing this knowledge. We are already receiving all this data from the Karachi Stock Exchange and working of ways to make it most insightful for users.
BRR: Give us an estimate of the funding that is being pumped to establish this enterprise; how soon do you expect revenues to start flowing in?
MAK: In 2014, we shall be rolling out completely in Pakistan and also entering the GCC markets. These efforts will entail significant expenditures from us as a result of which we expect to invest about $2-3 million into the business over the next 16 to 18 months. Revenues should start within a year but having said that in any technology business it is very important to go in with a sustenance mindset.
BRR: Will InvestGuide360 develop into a trading platform to rival existing players in that market?
MAK: We are not in the business to fight over the same pie with the existing brokerage industry. Instead, our efforts will help them by attracting a wider base of potential investors to the financial markets. At one point, we wish to connect the region’s markets via our platform, by connecting brokerage houses across these markets. We do not aim to become the custodian of funds, instead we want to provide the platform whereby investors can gain knowledge about investment opportunities throughout the region and also gain access to those markets.
So, through our platform, prospective investors have access to a comprehensive stock of information to help their investment decisions. Then they can use it to find out about the different brokerage houses and other financial institutions, and compare them in terms of their financial strength, research capabilities and quality of services. Then they can access a platform whereby they can execute trades across the region.
BRR: What should users and existing service providers in the financial industry expect from InvestorGuide360?
MAK: We believe that language barriers have kept access to information, elusive for many people in this country and in others. For this reason, we will provide the contents of the entire website in Urdu, in addition to English in Pakistan. Similarly, in the GCC markets, we intend to provide content in Arabic as well. This one step will help bring a host of investors to the markets that have so far remained out simply because they do not comprehend the information that is already available.
Then there is a severe dearth in terms of educating the youth and others regarding financial literacy. Nobody tells 14-year olds whether they should get a credit card, what terms they should seek from an insurance provider, etc.
We are the only platform that is providing an unbiased platform for data and analysis from across the financial industry. Our users should look forward to a lifetime free service that brings to them, the same insights that a CEO of a major company gets after paying a hefty amount of money.
We are wiping out the monopoly over information and the lack of structured knowledge from financial markets. We also want the industry players to know that we are not emerging competition; we are going to help them gain access to a larger client pool.
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