Unlocking the Indian economy from Aotearoa: the story of Jai Goradia and the Indus fintech platform

It all started with a game of cricket

Back in 2018, while watching a cricket game with his dad, Jai Goradia, then living in Mumbai, decided he wanted to study abroad in New Zealand rather than the traditional destinations of the U.S. or the U.K. “It was in between overs of the match where they showed scenes of Mt Maunganui around the Bay Oval cricket grounds. I told my Dad: This is the kind of life I want! This is where I want to live!”

Growing up in India, water activities like swimming and surfing weren’t very popular and Jai dreamed of a life filled with beach culture, the outdoors and having a beer on the grass. Little did he know that his decision to move to New Zealand, paired with a background in economics and finance, would lead to him founding a financial technology platform with the potential to catalyse New Zealand-India economic relations and to open Indian markets to the world.

Indus founder Jai Goradia. Image: Supplied

A love of all things international and finance

Jai grew up in the tech city Bangalore, later relocating to Mumbai, a big financial hub and a fast-moving city of 20 million where his parents thought he’d have some great opportunities. He loved the maths side of economics which he studied at the University of Mumbai, trade and international relations (including model UN events) and debating (including representing India in the Asian Debating Championship). After that fateful cricket match, Jai then made the decision to study abroad, initially pursuing a master’s in applied finance at Victoria University of Wellington in 2019 and finishing just before lockdown in 2020.

Finding a solution to the nightmare that was investing in India while abroad

After university and gaining some years of experience in corporate investment banking in New Zealand, Jai found himself with a bit of money he thought he should invest. “I wanted to start investing in India, but the barriers were crazy if you lived outside of India. You needed to go there, to open an Indian bank account, and sending money involved big foreign exchange fees. Getting money out of India was also notoriously difficult and involved hiring an accountant. “I said this is a completely broken process, and no one's servicing the Indian market from outside of India.”

Jai found that a solution to this problem didn’t exist because there were so many regulatory hurdles to jump over. Together with Indian law firm Trilegal and Singapore-based DBS bank, he found a model to make investing in India from outside as easy as buying a Tesla share. After much hard work and bootstrapping, Indus launched in July 2023.

Investing in India from afar can be a notoriously difficult process - Jai hopes to change that. Image: Supplied

Support through the start-up phase

Jai found that New Zealand is the ideal place for starting up a company like Indus. “The ease of doing business is just incredible here. You would think that for a Fintech like us with these crazy aspirations of doing something that's not been done anywhere in the world the regulators would be waiting to stop you. But the regulators have been super supportive of us. Just yesterday where we had a long call with about eight or nine members of the Financial Markets Authority.” Indus is also going through the Creative HQ three-month Fintech accelerator programme alongside other Kiwi start-ups, finishing with Fintech Fest on 30 April.

Paving the way for economic relations and trade agreements

“I think Indus can be a conduit for bettering relations between New Zealand and India, especially increased investments and for connecting what is increasingly becoming a global economy,” Jai says.

He makes two main points here. First, Jai believes that while there is an intent to grow in mutually economically beneficial ways, there has been a lack of supply and infrastructure that exists between the two places. Indus hopes to provide the infrastructure that connects the people to the economies and then strengthens those ties.

Second, for some time New Zealand has been in pursuit of a free trade agreement with India, with both countries taking part in 10 negotiation rounds between 2010 and 2015. To support progress in a trade agreement, India is interested in increased investment from New Zealand. “And although we are quite small and quite new,” Jai explains “we, as a New Zealand company, can play an important role in trade deals and bilateral talks by building the financial investment bridge that is currently non-existent between the two countries. This is incentivising investment and helps to builds trust.”

Indus - A home in New Zealand with global ambitions for the future

Jai admits his work involves some very long hours and some late night international meetings. He sets a high bar for himself and his company, with an aim to personally phone every new Indus customer to thank them and build trusting relationships.

Indus’ ambitions are great: within a year, the company's plans to be in three countries—New Zealand, Australia, and the U.S. and to have 50,000 customers. Apart from Jai’s insatiable enthusiasm and the fact that Indus met its 500 customer milestone within the first month of operation, there are plenty of reasons to believe they’ll succeed. While their vision is for anyone outside of India to be able to invest, Indus is looking particularly at Indians living outside their home country of which there are 32 million. In addition, India is the fastest growing economy in the world, is going to be the third-largest economy in the world by 2027, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi predicts it will move from being a developing to a developed nation by 2047.

The company name Indus is about a return to a pre-colonial era in which India prospered. This is the journey Jai and his team are enabling the world to be part of.

Links

For more information check out Indus’ website here.

You can keep up to date with Indus Journey as part of Creative HQs Fintech accelerator here, including Fintech Fest on 30 April.

Connect with Jai here.