[Review] Sqrrl App; Get Financial Prosperity By Investing In Direct Mutual Funds, SIP in Goal Based Investment App

FinTech startup, Sqrrl, wants to redefine how Indians invest through simple and intuitive solutions.

According to an IOSR report, the number of retails investors in the Indian equity market stands at a measly 4.45 percent. Which is depressing. And which is the exact problem Sqrrl is trying to solve.

So what is Sqrrl?

To quote their mission statement,

“Sqrrl is a platform aimed at helping young Indians save their earnings while keeping things simple. With Sqrrl, it’s not about putting away large chunks of your salary, but rather small sums with just a couple of clicks! Everyone hates to see their hard-earned money go into taxes. Along with helping you save, Sqrrl also loves to make tax savings simple and effortless for you. All this with the aim to help young Indians prosper!”

The interesting thing about their mission statement is that we couldn’t find the word ‘finance’, even though they’re essentially a finance startup, simplifying mutual funds investing. So when we enquired about this, what they said is that’s how they want to position their brand – a non-finance company. And which is also their value proposition.

According to them, Sqrrl is a lifestyle brand that aims to help people realize their any to every kind of dreams, by getting them into the habit of investing, and through that, growing their savings.

Product Offerings:
Sqrrl has a host of different product offerings, customized for different sets of users, to meet different goals. Here we’ll have a look at a few of them.

Sqrrl Away

The feature of Sqrrl Away allows users to put away small amounts of money into a virtual savings nest. The biggest advantage with Sqrrl Away is that while a typical savings account gives you a meager 3.5% returns, stashing your money in Sqrrl Away will generate approx. 6-7%, by investing in only those mutual funds that have performed better. What’s even more exciting is the fact that you can start with as low as Rs 100. You can set up weekly payments and even top up your savings. Another good feature of Sqrrl Away is that is that you can withdraw your money 24/7 – 500 – 50,000 instantly or 100% of the amount on the next business day morning. It doesn’t come up a lock-in period either.

BYOD (Bring Your Own Dreams)

BYOD is all about realizing your dreams – be it the next smartphone, that much-visualized trip or the long-anticipated car. You need to feed the amount of money you require at the end of a certain time period, to achieve a certain dream, and Sqrrl will tell you how much you need to invest, on a monthly basis, to realize that goal. You can also adjust the amount of money you want to put into BYOD per month, and it’ll show you after what period of time you’ll be able to make the required amount of money. It’s a complete DIY solution giving the user full control over their aspirations.

Axe Tax

Axe Tax is basically geared towards helping you make the most of your allowed tax rebate. The government allows you 1,50,000 of tax rebate and by putting your money in Axe Tax, it’ll help you in claiming the full rebate. Basically, it’s guiding you to the total amount you need to invest to claim the full Income tax benefits.

Apart from this the company also offers a lot of other investment options in gold funds, SIP, lump sum, etc.

How to get started?

With a very clean, vibrant, and user-friendly interface, Sqrrl has indeed managed to keep things simple. Let’s have a look at the step-by-step procedure to know how they do it.

• Download the Sqrrl app from the Google Play Store/iOS store. Once installed, click open the app and you’ll be greeted with the welcome screen.

• Sqrrl was the very 1st Mutual Funds app, in India, to have the vernacular capability, and it currently supports 9 languages (English + 8). In the second step, you’ll be presented with those nine languages and you can proceed ahead, after selecting one.

• Click on the get started a tab at the bottom (you can also explore what all the app is capable of) and enter your phone number to start the signup process.

• After this, you’ll receive an OTP and once you feed that in, you’ll be taken to your profile building screen.

• The next step will require you to enter your name and email id (and a referral code, if you have one) and you’ll be taken to your bank verification screen.

• In the bank verification screen, the app will ask you to set up set up your account through 2 very quick but important steps – PAN & KYC verification and Bank & Additional Information. Here you’ll also be able to see the whole host of options via which you can begin your investing journey, along with information on what the respective options are.

• You’ll be asked to enter your PAN details in the next screen – your name, PAN number, and date of birth. And then, confirm your details. This will make you a KYC-Certified user.

• The final screen will ask you to enter your bank details wherein you’ll be asked to enter the account holder’s name, account number, confirm your account number and IFSC Code. Once done, verify your details in the next screen and hit proceed.

Congratulations! You’re all set to carry out your first transaction, once you complete the other formalities to get you started.

The firm is regulated by SEBI and comes under the purview of AMFI with 128-bit encryption and bank grade security. Backed by a highly credible team of experts, with a collective experience of over 60 years in the mutual fund’s industry, Sqrrl is one app you should look at, for all your investing needs.