Business Standard has a heartwarming story of a successful Indian entrepreneur who also heads India’s second-largest commodity exchange (MCX).
In 1995, with Shah as the dreamer and Neralla as the architect, they set about starting a financial product company that would not just restrict itself to trading systems for equity, but create products that would attack all high transaction density markets, whether commodity, equity, currency or bond.
Until then, technology in India was predominantly a skilled manpower supply story but we were going to create products that were a means to an end, not an end in itself. Our sights were set on transaction markets, explains Shah.
From a starting capital of Rs 5 lakh, self-funded by Shah mortgaging his home, FTIL grew from five work terminals to a 5,000 strong workforce and covered 80 per cent of the domestic base, powering practically every major Indian internet site during the internet boom.
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Says Shah, We are getting into mobile-based digital transactions for micro credit; it is a trillion dollar market. It will capture all low-end transactions, mobilising small money at a quarter of the cost. When media turns completely digital, we will be there too. I have a library with 5,000 books on various complex market opportunities that FTIL can get into when the time is right. We will create billion dollar stories out of million dollar ones. We are players in a high-speed, high-stakes game, we cant stop now.
