Shriram Wealth’s CTO on tech strategy, balancing innovation, and compliance cost

Financial services conglomerate Shriram Group made an entry into the wealth management space with the launch of Shriram Wealth, announced in June this year. The new entity is established in a joint venture with South Africa’s financial services provider Sanlam Group, bringing together over 150 years of combined experience in the domain.

At the time of the launch, the company said that it aims to democratise wealth through multiple modes, starting with India’s top 10 cities and then eventually moving to tier-2 and -3 markets. The company is targeting to achieve ₹50,000 crore in Asset Under Advice (AUA) over the next five years.

TechCircle interviewed Puneet Asthana, executive director and chief technology officer at Shriram Wealth, to understand how technology will play an enabler role in this pursuit.

Edited excerpts:

What is the digital technology strategy that you have envisioned for Shriram Wealth, especially considering its nascent stage?

Technology today is not just an enabler but the very driver of business, especially in wealth management. From a wealth management point of view, there are four core pillars of how an organisation is built. First is customer onboarding.

In India, digital onboarding is available across asset classes. The differentiator lies in how seamless and intuitive the experience is. For example, we’ve implemented a smooth transition from DIY journeys to assisted journeys. It is followed by the demand for front-end channels. For this, we offer both a web platform and a mobile app. The app supports end-to-end engagement, which includes onboarding, transactions, and consolidated portfolio views.

Next, we have transaction processing and intelligence. Beyond seamless transactions, the goal is to add intelligence. Instead of bombarding customers with notifications, we generate highly personalised and contextual nudges. The last and most important pillar, for long-term success, is servicing and operations. Our service model ensures that queries raised, whether via relationship managers (RM), app, or service desk, are tracked and escalated on dashboards. Automated flagging, ticket aging, and prioritization ensure no issue falls through the cracks.

In addition, we are leveraging advanced data analytics and developing specialized models to accelerate turnaround times. A practical use case is auto-generating customer proposals. Earlier, preparing a tailored proposal after an RM’s meeting could take days. Now, based on notes, our platform can generate a ready-to-share PDF or PPT overnight.

Tell us about your tech team and your technology partners who are enabling these innovations.

Our JV partner, Sanlam, brings in deep expertise in asset management, having successfully run AMCs, while in wealth, Shriram has built a strong team of professionals from established broking and wealth management firms who understand how to design and scale platforms. The team, though relatively small at about 20–25 members, is highly experienced and works closely with industry experts and OEMs. For instance, Zoho (ManageEngine) is used for desk and ticketing management, and FactSet in the AMC business for data and analytics.

Being a multi-asset, distribution-driven organisation, personalisation is critical, and since no single platform in the market fully addresses this need, we are building a unified wealth platform in-house. This involves creating a middleware layer to process data, feed it into AI models, and generate insights for customers.

In broking, we are evaluating new partners, while current operations involve Kambala for trading and TechExcel for back-office, with front-office systems like mobile apps largely developed in-house with partners instead of relying on off-the-shelf solutions. In essence, while external expertise supports specific areas such as AMC analytics and back-office operations, the core wealth platform and customer-facing applications are being custom-built to ensure scalability and personalisation.

You work with a range of service providers. Could you tell us about how you balance between building in-house and buying off-the-shelf solutions?

From my experience in the BFSI sector and years of working with fintech partners, I have come to believe that core platforms such as transaction processing, settlements, and back-office systems are already solved problems and offer little differentiation. Rebuilding them from scratch has limited value, so it is more effective to buy or partner for these.

However, middleware and customer-facing layers like processing structured and unstructured data, designing customer experiences, and building mobile or web platforms must be developed in-house. By in-house, I mean either with internal developers or development partners, but with complete ownership of design within the organisation. Off-the-shelf products in these areas cause delays and compromises.

A critical layer is operational control. Even when working with vendors or partners, the technology operations and fulfillment layer must always remain in-house. Without internal domain knowledge and control, no vendor can truly run the business.

We also maintain end-to-end control of the development and deployment pipeline (CI/CD), ensuring no code goes live without rigorous testing and approval. This governance reduces surprises in production and allows vendors to focus on their role without disrupting customer experience.

Operating in a critical sector such as BFSI means the service provider has to comply with several mandates and guidelines. How does Shriram Wealth ensure such compliance?

To address compliance, we have a dedicated team in place, along with a cybersecurity team that closely monitors every circular and regulation. We track exactly which circular is issued, on what date, and what reaction time is allowed. Ensuring adherence to those timelines is their responsibility.

Alongside, we have a separate IT governance head who is fully accountable for implementing these regulatory and audit requirements. Audits, both internal and external, are taken very seriously and are part of our regular process.

Of course, the implementation side falls heavily on technology. It is our teams that often have to work late nights and weekends to meet these compliance deadlines. The entire industry, frankly, is in firefighting mode whenever new circulars land. For example, after SEBI’s Cybersecurity and Cyber Reliance Framework (CSCRF) was introduced last year, a new concept called SBOM (Software Bill of Materials) has come into focus. Now, we are working to implement this not just internally but across our vendors as well. All our partners are being asked to stay audit-ready and present their techniques for compliance.

I am personally cautious with SaaS in the BFSI space because of the sensitivity of workloads, but in certain cases, we do use SaaS offerings, always with very strict vendor scrutiny. We have a strong vendor engagement process, and the due diligence we do with partners is extensive. That brings me to an important point: the cost of compliance. It has become significant in recent years. There are practices we follow for hygiene, but many additional requirements mandated by regulators add to the cost.