For any non-product related queries, please write to info@perfios.com.
For any non-product related queries, please write to info@perfios.com.
Bangalore: Though the use of software to manage personal finance is still in its nascent stage in India, V.R. Govindarajan, Co-founder and Director of Perfios is bullish on this space, where spreadsheets have dominated all these years. "We launched our first product six months back to address our own pain points in the management of personal finance," says Govindarajan, who was also the Co-founder of Aztecsoft, a software servicing firm which was acquired by MindTree. The personal finance solution offered by Perfios aims at giving the users a 360 degree view of their financial affairs by enabling them to aggregate their financial data from more than 100 financial institutions. According to the Co-founder, there are three ways by which users can enter data into the software viz. manual entry of transactions, uploading statements from financial institutions and automatic fetching of data from various outlets. While Govindarajan admits that while dealing with personal finance, security and privacy of individuals are of prime importance, the company has taken several measures to keep the trouble makers at bay. "We have partnered with TrustGuard, which runs more than 30,000 vulnerability tests every day on our site to ensure that Perfios is a secure application," he says. The Bangalore-based company also uses the security certificate from Verisign, which enables the secure transfer of data to and from users' machines. Apart from these measures, Govindarajan believes that a major privacy feature in the product is that the credentials uploaded are never stored on the company's servers, but are encrypted and stored on the systems locally. Since Perfios uses a B2C approach to sell its products, the company plans to focus more on its marketing efforts now, which includes online marketing and working with channel partners like banks, mutual fund houses, chartered accountants and other financial institutions. Currently, the company offers the software through a 'Freemium' model - Free and premium. Most of the wealth managers use the premium or the paid service, while still several individuals are using the free service. Though there are a couple of players in India who are in this space, Govindarajan believes that features like import and export of the data, uploads, security and automated services give them a edge over other others. Though the company currently offers this service on the mobile phones also, in the coming months it plans to revamp it. "Since we are a startup, we are able introduce new features easily," points out Govindarajan. Currently, the Perfios team consists of 16 members and there are plans to increase the workforce to 40-45 by the end of this financial year.
