We all feel so confused in this world of financial cyberfraud and scams that where to put our money to grow it at a good rate and elevate our financial position.
I, being a post graduate student, can relate to all of you as we are fascinated and eager to utilise our subject oriented knowledge to the real life world. We are so afraid to begin investing as most of us start earning a little or receive pocket money from our parents which we don’t want to waste.
So, here I am writing a review after using the financial app “Groww” for 6 months to clear all your doubts and give you assurance that yes, you can fulfill your dream of investing in mutual funds, stocks, etc and gain a real world experience with assured safety and privacy.
Let’s take a quick look at Groww’s background
Groww is an Indian company. In 2016, four Flipkart employees – Lalit Keshre, Harsh Jain, Ishan Bansal and Neeraj Singh, quit their jobs to start a venture that could make investing easy. They called this venture Groww and started operations in 2017.
It is an online investment platform based in Bangalore, India, to simplify investing for digital natives. Groww offers investment options like stocks, mutual funds, ETFs and more, and is registered with SEBI, the Indian regulatory body for securities.
My First Impression
Well! Talking about the first impression, I was so amazed by the simplicity of the app. The colour theme is so cool and the interface is so user friendly. It is a platform independent app, i.e., you can run it easily on mobile as well as on laptop.
Opening a demat account was very much easier (I literally used to feel like it’s a difficult task before using this app). Every single step was digitally done and my KYC process was completed within 24 hrs. And there you go, exploring and understanding stocks and mutual funds to start investing.
User Friendliness – Simplicity at its best
On opening the app, a well defined homepage will appear with a number of important sections.
The ‘Explore’ tab of Mutual Funds will appear 1st, from where you can overview and dive into the details of a number of mutual funds.
The app has clearly differentiated the mutual funds on their basic characteristics making it easier for beginners to match their level of risk with the desired mutual fund to invest.
The ‘Dashboard’ Tab will show you your total holdings and the list of funds in which you have invested, each one separately and the total amount together (If invested in more than one MF) along with the daily increase/decrease in the value of the mutual funds.
The ‘SIP’ Tab will show your active SIP’s, meaning, the list of MF’s and their due date of autopayment.
The ‘Watchlist’ Tab gives you suggestions where you can add MF’s to this list to watch their growth and related activities.
Similar is the case if you choose to invest in Stocks directly. By selecting Stocks from the lower bar, you’ll get similar tabs like of MFs to keep a watch on your invested stocks.
If you wish, you can also explore ‘F&O’ tab i.e. dealing in futures and options but for that you need to be a knowledgeable and active investor.
Diving into Interesting Features
- Compare funds option: I found it a really convenient and helpful feature as one doesn’t need to note information of different MF’s and then compare. This feature directly helps you to compare different mutual funds of your choice on various factors which leads to convenient and well informed decision making. You can also use the filter option for more clear research of desired funds.
- Import Funds: If you already have a demat account elsewhere and want to use groww now, you can easily import your funds to this app and have a close watch and manage it from this app.
- SIP Calculator: This is the best built-in feature for me and I bet it’ll be for you too.
You can simply get an estimate regarding what your earnings will become after your desired investment period. Each section of this calculator can easily be modified.
It helped me build a diversified portfolio and manage my limited funds effectively, as I can easily decide on how much to invest in each mutual fund using this calculator.
You will find this calculator below every mutual fund – which makes this app really great – as one does not have to run here and there for small information and calculations.
Also you can decide upon to make a lump sum investment or to start a SIP, the calculator gives you both options.
Making available both the features (of Lumpsum and SIP) with so much ease helps this app in standing out among other financial apps.
- Detailed Graphical Representations: You can find a detailed trend line of the value of each and every fund over different time periods – 1 month, 6 months, 1 year, 3 years and 5 years.
Hovering your mouse over the trend line will give you the NAV on a specified date.
- Comprehensive reliable information: Below every mutual fund, you can find the utmost important details regarding the holdings of the mutual fund, its ranking and returns, expense ratio, exit load & tax, etc, which we need to analyse to make our final decision of investing. Everything which we are usually concerned about is easily available on this platform.
Additional Informative Features
Is Groww Safe? The ultimate question!
After using Groww for 6 months, I can confidently say it feels completely safe to invest through it, because:
Also they don’t push any schemes or mis-sell investments. Everything feels transparent and under your control here.
There were a few small issues, like a delay in NAV updates and two SIP’s that didn’t go through because of a UPI glitch, but nothing major. I still use Groww regularly and feel more confident about handling my money now.
Talking about customer support, I haven’t dealt with it much but putting forward here a general opinion. The chatbot is efficient & the helpdesk on their website answers many questions. The e-mail response is somewhat delayed and there is no direct human interaction through calls, so yes it can be considered a drawback if your query doesn’t find an appropriate reply.
Final Piece of Advice
The Groww app is super amazing for beginners & students like me along with young professionals who are very cost conscious.
It is one of India’s best leading investment platform right now and is creating a buzz in the market. The app is very easy to handle with every detail given in a systematic way.
Do analyse every point of importance before making investment in the desired Mutual Fund and Stocks. Check their rating (riskiness and credibility), NAVs, rate of return and expense ratio (amount that will be deducted for handling the fund in general on redemption).
I assure you’ll definitely feel confident with having control over your money as this app will clear all your fears and complexities that you usually feel while entering into the financial market.
Happy Growing with Groww 🙂
