Mumbai: It’s simple! But in conversation with Vivek Law, Sandeep Jethwani, Co-Founder, Deserve, explains why India’s rapidly growing investor base now needs more than product access. According to Jethwani, the next phase of wealth creation in India will depend on disciplined portfolio construction, high-quality advice and confidence led largely by technology.
India’s growing mentorship gap
The discussion focused on a major change underway in Indian finance. While equities have become a mainstream long-term investment option for millions of Indians, the advisory infrastructure has not kept pace with the pace of wealth creation. Jethwani said there is little service when it comes to financial advice in India, even among affluent families.
He said that the proportion of relationship managers in families in India is the lowest globally. While developed markets have built deep advisory ecosystems over decades, India is still in the early stages of building a professional wealth management culture. As a result, a large segment of investors continue to rely on fragmented advice, informal recommendations and momentum-driven investing.
Market corrections and investor behavior
Law asked whether the current market correction has become a warning to retail investors entering the market after 2020. Jethwani agreed, noting that many investors are facing their first meaningful recession. While the headline indices may appear relatively stable, portfolios heavily tilted towards mid- and small-cap stocks have seen fairly sharp declines from peak levels.
According to him, the reform has highlighted a bigger issue in Indian investment behaviour. Many portfolios today are built through years of ad hoc investments, often resulting in excessive diversification without a strategy. Jethwani commented that it is common for investors to hold dozens of individual stocks and mutual funds simultaneously, creating complexity without proper risk management.
The conversation returned again and again to investor psychology. Jethwani points out that market volatility often reveals how little discipline there is in portfolio construction. While investors are beginning to accept long-term equity investments, emotional reactions still dominate decision making during the correction. He emphasized that it is often more important to survive difficult market phases than to chase extraordinary returns during a bull market.
Law also raised the issue of why wealth management in India has historically been highly goal-based. Jethwani pointed out that for years, the industry was dominated by banks, where wealth products were sold along with a range of financial services under aggressive sales structures. This created a system where product delivery was often prioritized over long-term consulting relationships.
However, he believes the industry is now gradually moving towards a more customer-centric model. Independent and specialized wealth management firms are increasingly focusing on long-term relationships, transparency, and fee-based advisory structures rather than transaction-based sales. According to Jethwani, wealth management is fundamentally a complex business where the true value of a client relationship emerges over five to ten years.
To illustrate this, he shared the example of a client relationship that started more than a decade ago with an investment of around ₹15 to ₹20 lakh and has since grown into a portfolio of over ₹150 crore. The example demonstrates how long-term trust and disciplined engagement can produce significant results over time, he said.
Why are investors willing to pay for advice?
The discussion also focused on the growing acceptance of fee-based advisory models in India. Jethwani argued that Indian consumers are value conscious rather than reluctant to pay. Investors are open to advisory fees if they clearly understand the value being delivered through portfolio review, family wealth discussions and structured financial planning.
AI, technology and the human layer
Law asked whether technology and AI could fundamentally disrupt traditional money management. Jethwani described AI as one of the biggest structural changes facing the industry, but said there will continue to be a need for a strong human layer for advice. According to him, wealth management combines both data-driven decision making and behavioral guidance, making it difficult to completely automate trust and personal engagement.
At the same time, he acknowledged that technology is already reshaping the way portfolios are managed and serviced. Deserve works on a discretionary model where the portfolio is managed transparently on a fee basis without commission or brokerage incentives. Using technology and data models, the platform analyzes large amounts of information to build and monitor portfolios across a limited number of mutual funds selected through a quantitative framework.
Jethwani said technology has also significantly improved customer experience. Investors today expect flexibility in engagement, whether through physical meetings, video calls or digital updates. The hybrid advisory model has therefore become increasingly important, especially for time-crunched professionals and entrepreneurs.
Democratization of wealth management
The conversation discussed the widespread democratization of wealth management in India. Although regulatory limitations currently restrict portfolio management services to small investors, Jethwani said the long-term aim is to eventually use technology and scalable advisory models to serve a much broader population.
Reflecting on his own journey, Jethwani talked about growing up in a family of public sector bankers in Nagpur, where there was a deep emphasis on ethics, education and discipline. His early experience during the 2008 financial crisis soon after entering the industry shaped his approach to risk management and investor behavior.
He explained that the idea for Deserve emerged from observing a recurring problem among first-generation wealth creators. Many successful professionals and entrepreneurs were earning well and investing, but lacked structured guidance on managing money in the long term. The platform was created to address this gap through disciplined investing, transparency and technology-enabled advice.
sustainable wealth creation
At the end of the discussion, Jethwani emphasized that wealth management is ultimately a trust-driven business rather than a sales business. He argued that sustainable growth comes from creating long-term value for customers rather than rapidly expanding through aggressive product promotion.
The conversation ended with broad reflections on India’s financial development. As more families are entering formal investing for the first time, Jethwani believes the next challenge for the industry will be not just to increase participation, but to ensure that investors remain disciplined, well-advised and financially flexible across market cycles.