Soon after returning to Bengaluru from his honeymoon in Dubai in
2013, Abdul Hadi Shaikh went to his preferred vendor on Commercial Street to
exchange the few dirhams he had left with him. While he was at the store, his
wife took a stroll, checking out the other stores in the vicinity. Just when he
had finalized the exchange rate, his wife returned and told him that the money
changer next door was offering a much better rate. This was an embarrassment
for Shaikh, because forex markets was something he dealt with, having been head
of research at Ratings Intelligence, a research intelligence firm for Islamic
investors headquartered in London. “Quite deservingly I was jacked in my area
of expertise, much to my wife’s amusement. But this incident left me wondering,
why not create a web-based comparison platform for getting the best forex
deals,” he recalls. The banks charge was more than the interbank rate, while
the authorized money exchangers have small stores, untrained staff and no
visible branding.
That was the beginning of Fxkart, an online aggregator of
foreign exchange dealers, which started with Mushtaq Shah, the founder of
Rating Intelligence. Shaikh had worked for Shah for more than seven years after
passing out of college. Shah, who is also co-founding partner of hedge fund
Quantmetrics Capital Management, was earlier an executive director at Goldman
Sachs International. Shaikh graduated in commerce from Mahaveer Jain College in
Bengaluru and joined Ratings Intelligence to start its Indian operations. “My
father was wary. I could have easily secured a job at E&Y (audit firm Ernst
& young), having interned there during my college days. I told my father I
wanted to try out this (Rating Intelligence) option for a couple of years and
see how it goes. I guess my seeds of entrepreneurship were sown during that
time,” Shaikh says.
Fxkart’s services are free for consumers, but the company charges
the 100 odd money changers on its platform. When consumers feed their
requirement on the platform, forex dealers will offer their rates, and the
consumer can choose to go with the best rate. Fxkart earns a commission on
every successful transaction. The platform sees about 35 transactions of about
$2.5 million since it went live in January. “When you are running your own
company, there is no start time and end time. You are always engrossed in it.
My wife is a doctor, and she was not keen to marry someone in her own
profession as the schedules are hectic and the working hours are odd. She chose
to marry me as I had a five-day work week and fixed work timings. Six months
into the marriage, Fxkart started taking shape, leading to long working hours,
weekend work and a whole lot of travel. Now she says I tricked her in to marry
me,” Shaikh laughs.
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