Looking to create a customer base of over 1 lakh in the Middle-East, Anil Ambani Group's financial products distribution arm Reliance Money today announced the launch of its broking and portfolio management services in the United Arab Emirates."This is our first initiative to offer financial services outside India and we plan to tap over 20 million NRIs and resident Indians in Middle-East with this initiative. Our business model is to offer cost-effective, secure products and services to a larger section of population and we replicate that model in UAE as well, " Sudip Bandyopadhyay, Reliance Money director & CEO, said.The brokering firm announced it would start offering its brokering services at 'competitive rates', which could start off a rate war in the UAE financial market.Reliance Money, which had launched its services in India in April last year, had triggered a brokerage rate war by charging a flat fee as against percentage brokerage charged by other players.This had forced a lot of brokerages to reduce their rates sharply but also led to the expansion the market.The company has also launched its Portfolio Management Services (PMS) for investment size as low as 50,000 dollars in the UAE and plans to provide these services to the middle class investors as well."Usually, PMS services are offered to high net worth investors. We would like to break the entry barrier to this service and reach out to a large number of middle class investors who have been totally ignored so far," Bandyopadhyay said. (-Malvika Bhatnagar)
