AI-trained grads edge out costly advisers at Indian wealth firm
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Indian digital wealth venture Dezerv says it is recruiting people straight out of college who it can train using AI.
PHOTO: PIXABAY
MUMBAI – With a limited pool of seasoned private bankers to tap into India’s booming wealth, one upstart is bucking the trend by planning to hire dozens of new graduates.
Dezerv, a digital wealth venture, says it is recruiting people straight out of college who it can train using artificial intelligence (AI), showing how the technology’s boom is reaching into a business long dominated by personal relationships with the ultra-rich. Elsewhere, a wider talent war is also pushing relationship manager pay to record highs.
“Most of our competition are spending massive amounts on hiring experienced relationship managers and private bankers, which is costly,” said Mr Sandeep Jethwani, co-founder of Mumbai-based Dezerv – which has around 170 relationship managers, the majority of whom are experienced.
The company, which is backed by the family office of tech billionaire Azim Premji, plans to hire around 120 new relationship managers by the end of 2026, the majority of whom will be young college graduates.
Mr Jethwani says Dezerv will use technology and AI to help train the graduates for three to six months before they can interact with clients.
In October, Dezerv raised US$40 million (S$52 million) in a Series C round led by Premji Invest and Accel, among others, valuing it at around US$300 million, according to market intelligence platform Tracxn Technologies.
With about US$1.7 billion in client assets, and a minimum of five million rupees ($73,000) to open an account, Dezerv is yet to make a dent on the broader industry’s leading wealth managers. It already has 600,000 users on its platform who track their debt and equity investments, as well as their bank deposits and pension funds. This activity helps to inform the AI model.
As retail investors and wealthy Indians increasingly use Open AI’s ChatGPT or Perplexity AI for financial analysis and investment advice, wealth managers need to integrate AI into their investment process and client relations, Mr Jethwani said.
Dezerv has a team of more than 110 engineers, product and design staff and 35 investment experts working on AI.
“The idea is to translate our investment knowledge into an AI engine that can scale our expertise.” Mr Jethwani said. BLOOMBERG
