{"id":218,"date":"2025-12-04T05:02:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T05:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesimplehaishow.com\/thesimplehaishow\/?p=218"},"modified":"2026-08-19T07:04:49","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T07:04:49","slug":"soap-scents-and-savings-strategies-how-a-consumer-goods-veteran-is-reprogramming-indian-finance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesimplehaishow.com\/thesimplehaishow\/podcast\/soap-scents-and-savings-strategies-how-a-consumer-goods-veteran-is-reprogramming-indian-finance\/","title":{"rendered":"Soap Scents and Savings Strategies: How a Consumer Goods Veteran is Reprogramming Indian Finance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Rohit Bhasin, President and CMO of Kotak Mahindra Bank, joins Vivek Law on the Simple Hai!<\/em> podcast to discuss how he is bringing consumer-centric marketing to banking to address India’s massive investment gap and transform citizens from ‘savers’ into ‘investors’.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the conversation, Bhasin reflected on his transition from the consumer goods industry to the financial services sector. After spending 25 years at Unilever and working with globally recognised brands, he embraced the challenge of introducing a fresh, consumer-first approach to banking. According to Bhasin, finance represents one of India’s biggest opportunities because the country’s investment products remain significantly under-penetrated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While working at Kotak, Bhasin observed that traditional banking often follows a supply-driven approach that asks, “We have created this product; who can we sell it to?” In contrast, the marketing principles he learned in the FMCG industry focus on consumer demand. This approach begins by identifying customer needs, creating products that solve those needs, and clearly communicating how those products are better than competing alternatives. In his view, every successful brand exists to solve a genuine consumer problem and remain relevant in people’s lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ActivMoney: Turning Savers Into Active Investors<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

One of the products closest to Bhasin’s heart is ActivMoney<\/strong>, which was developed after identifying an important consumer insight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many Indians, having grown up with a scarcity mindset, prefer keeping large amounts of money in savings accounts because they want immediate access to funds during emergencies. Even when fixed deposit (FD) interest rates increased, substantial amounts of money continued to remain idle in savings accounts because people were reluctant to sacrifice liquidity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ActivMoney was designed to solve this problem by combining the benefits of both savings accounts and fixed deposits. The product allows customers to earn FD-like returns while maintaining the flexibility of a regular savings account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kotak later launched a marketing campaign featuring brand ambassador Ranveer Singh to encourage salaried customers to convert their existing accounts so that the money left in their salary accounts could earn higher returns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Second Income Plan for India’s Growing Affluent Class<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Recognising the rapid growth of India’s affluent population, Bhasin and his team introduced the Second Income Plan<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their research revealed that while a salary provides financial security, it also becomes the biggest source of anxiety because most long-term goals depend entirely on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bank wanted to help customers create a second income stream that could eventually match their monthly salary. This idea led to the launch of the Aspire SIP<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The product enables customers to select a target monthly income, such as \u20b91 lakh at the age of 40. Customers then invest through a Systematic Investment Plan (SIP) until they reach their target age. After that, they can transition to a Systematic Withdrawal Plan (SWP), which provides regular monthly withdrawals while allowing the remaining investment corpus to continue compounding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why Is Financial Literacy Still a Major Challenge in India?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Bhasin highlighted the significant gap between awareness and actual investment behaviour in India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He pointed out that everyday products such as soap have a market penetration of nearly 90%. However, according to a SEBI survey involving 90,000 households, although more than 80% of people are aware of investment products, fewer than 10% actively invest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mutual fund penetration remains below 10%, term deposits stand at approximately 15%, and insurance penetration is only 2%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Bhasin, many financial products are either perceived as too complicated or are simply misunderstood. Therefore, financial institutions must continuously educate customers and connect financial products to important life goals rather than focusing exclusively on returns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He used home loans as an example, arguing that every borrower should purchase term insurance equal to the loan amount. Doing so protects families by ensuring that the outstanding loan is repaid if the borrower passes away. However, pure term insurance adoption remains low because many consumers prefer insurance products that offer maturity benefits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leadership Lessons and Investment Advice for Young Professionals<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Bhasin also shared three important lessons for young professionals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. Identify Your Passion:<\/strong> Ask yourself, “If I had no fear of failure, what work would I choose?” The answer can help identify your true purpose.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Measure Leadership Through Your Followers:<\/strong> Instead of focusing only on leadership qualities, ask, “Why would people want me to lead them?” The answer often reveals the foundations of effective leadership.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Invest Before You Spend:<\/strong> Rather than saving whatever remains after spending, decide how much to invest first and then manage expenses with the remaining income.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    He emphasised the importance of starting early and investing for the long term, particularly in equities, which have historically been among the best-performing asset classes over the past 10, 20, and 25 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Bhasin concluded by encouraging young people to seek cultural experiences, including living in different countries whenever possible. He added that even everyday activities such as watching movies and browsing Instagram can provide valuable cultural insights. Ultimately, he believes the financial industry’s most important mission is to help India evolve from a nation of savers into a nation of investors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Rohit Bhasin, President and CMO of Kotak Mahindra Bank, joins Vivek Law on the Simple Hai! podcast to discuss how he is bringing consumer-centric marketing to banking to address India’s massive investment gap and transform citizens from ‘savers’ into ‘investors’. During the conversation, Bhasin reflected on his transition from the consumer goods industry to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":219,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-podcast"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesimplehaishow.com\/thesimplehaishow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesimplehaishow.com\/thesimplehaishow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesimplehaishow.com\/thesimplehaishow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesimplehaishow.com\/thesimplehaishow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesimplehaishow.com\/thesimplehaishow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thesimplehaishow.com\/thesimplehaishow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":220,"href":"https:\/\/thesimplehaishow.com\/thesimplehaishow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218\/revisions\/220"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesimplehaishow.com\/thesimplehaishow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesimplehaishow.com\/thesimplehaishow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesimplehaishow.com\/thesimplehaishow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesimplehaishow.com\/thesimplehaishow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}