The Breakthrough of the CAL Portal with Retail Capital Market Investors

As investors increasingly demanded the ability to digitally subscribe to IPOs this year, Capital Alliance (CAL) quickly stepped down, allowing investors to digitally subscribe to CAL-managed IPOs through its digital platform CAL Portal. As it turned out, the majority of underwriters were retail investors and not regular high net worth or institutional investors. Since the Covid-19 outbreak, the CAL portal’s user base has nearly tripled, and most users are under 35. Encouraging signs that CAL’s technology strategy was working.

Tharindra Kulasinghe, CIO at CAL, explains how the investment bank has built an in-house technology stack to democratize capital market products and services for growth and expansion overseas.

How is digital technology shaping the financial services industry, especially after Covid?

Digital technology has had a profound impact on financial services globally. In Sri Lanka, banks and other financial institutions have invested in digital platforms and distribution channels to provide customers with better access to transparent services. However, consumer adoption was not encouraging for a variety of reasons, including socio-cultural factors. Everything has changed with the Covid-19. Closures and other restrictions on movement have forced people to access banking and other financial services online on their desktop or mobile phones. Importantly, what also happened was that people saw how liberating the experience can be, and the floodgates opened.

Today, more and more people are becoming financially savvy and seeking alternative investment opportunities amid the ongoing economic challenges. The entire financial services industry is struggling to keep pace with the growing demand for digital services. In addition, regulatory initiatives such as electronic signatures and KYC video have accelerated the advancement of fintechs, leading to better digital products.

At CAL, we had patiently waited for this change to happen because we were ready for it.

What is the CAL approach to technology?

At CAL, one of our core values ​​is to use technology as one of the main drivers of the business. Regardless of the effort or business purpose we have, we use technology as a catalyst: whether it’s offering clients greater visibility on demand of their investments or providing better service. client or to ensure that CAL maintains its exceptional operational performance.

About five years ago, we embarked on a digital transformation journey because we saw technology as a tremendous catalyst and engine of growth. We wanted to democratize finance and expand our reach at home and abroad by building leaner and more efficient operations without incurring huge costs to open and operate branches and increase the workforce.

Instead, we have deliberately taken the tech route.

Over the years, we have made significant investments to develop our internal technological capabilities. At CAL, we have a dedicated technical team that pushes the boundaries of innovation and R&D. Partnerships with leading global companies such as AWS and Microsoft have helped us create a technology stack that serves our purposes and gives us a competitive advantage. We switched to cloud technology, deployed a cutting edge CRM platform, robotic process automation, and built our own data analytics platform and digital investment banking product called CAL Portal long before Covid. -19 and the digital boom in its wake. Decision making is data driven, and our advanced analytics capabilities allow us to understand market behavior, conditions and trends and use the data to provide our customers with the performance they expect and a best service.

Can you tell us more about CAL Portal and its performance?

Since the pandemic, CAL portal users have tripled and we continue to see a rapid escalation in the number of news users. A client can invest in our mutual funds online and monitor and manage their investments through the CAL portal. There is more. They can also access CAL Research’s award-winning market research, track private wealth management portfolios, and register for IPOs digitally. Recently, the capital market regulator allowed IPOs to allow investors to apply digitally, and several IPOs have done so.

CAL had the technology to facilitate them, marking a milestone in the digital transformation for capital markets in Sri Lanka. The convenient and easy-to-use workflow allows users to digitally complete applications in less than 5 minutes on their laptops, cellphones or tablets.

The CAL portal, built with the latest technology, processed more than 200 IPO requests per hour. The CAL portal is secure and has OTP and digital signature technology for a seamless customer experience. Customers who have subscribed to these IPOs through the CAL Portal can also enroll in CAL trust funds hassle-free and take advantage of our digital experience. Our customers can expect more digital products and services from the capital market – this is our commitment.

We have processed over 7,000 digital IPO subscriptions totaling 1.2 billion rupees for three IPOs. Of these, Capital Alliance Limited’s IPO attracted around 4,700 digital apps, and over 80% of them were subscriptions valued at under 100,000 rupees, demonstrating encouraging progress in our drive to democratize capital markets. These are retail investors, not the usual institutional and high net worth investors, so change is happening. More and more people want to invest in capital markets and do so digitally.

As CIO at CAL, what do you see for the future?

We have iterated our product over the past few years. The user experience is much better, and we have introduced digital signature and video KYC capabilities and given investors better visibility into their investment portfolios. We are trying to bring more and more products like IPOs and investment products that are accessible through the portal and provide a better user experience for the client.

Our technological strategy is based on an underlying vision to be global, the number one investment bank in frontier markets. We recently started our activities in Bangladesh and plan to expand to other countries in the near future.

True to our core vision of democratizing access to financial products and capital markets, we will continue to push the boundaries of innovation and deliver more of our services digitally, ensure good user experiences and create value for our customers.