Moneycontrol Pro aims to fill the gap in the financial information industry: Moneycontrol.com's Ravi Krishnan

Barely two years since its launch, Moneycontrol Pro, the premium offering from business news website Moneycontrol, has made it to the list of top 20 global digital news subscription providers.

According to a report by the International Federation of Periodical Publishers, Moneycontrol Pro with 330,000 subscribers is the only Indian publisher to be in the top 20 and ranks third in Asia. 

Ravi Krishnan

Ravi Krishnan, Deputy Executive Editor, Moneycontrol.com, believes that there is a demand for financial information today and Moneycontrol Pro aims to fill that gap.

“The numbers speak for themselves. Despite the Covid outbreak last year, we saw a record number of Demat accounts being added and a record number of investors entering markets and starting investments/trading. A lot of them are millennials. All these people would need information ranging from very simple things like how to open a Demat account to complex things like what kind of trading strategy they must use. The potential for the financial information industry is huge. We aim to fill that gap,” he said. 

Sharing his thoughts on the ranking, Krishnan said, “It is good news for us and a proud moment. We are happy that we've got that kind of validation within about two years from launch. But ultimately it is thanks to our subscribers who have stayed the path with us and kept on giving us feedback about what they expect."

Moneycontrol Pro is a platform for investors and provides investment solutions. Krishnan attributes the success of the premium app to their continued focus on the investor. 

“At Moneycontrol Pro, we have always kept the investor first and foremost, whether it is redesigning our user interface or improving user experience. The thinking always is in terms of what kind of content will our subscribers want, how we can help people in their wealth creation journey, what inputs we can provide them, how we can cut through the clutter. We are all bombarded with so much information every day and investors are no different. So we have created something that will make their life easier and give them access to insights. We also kept adding features. The Pro we launched is very different from what you see now and it will keep on evolving,” he said. 

The app provides an ad-free experience to the subscribers with personalised news, curated markets data, insights, analyses and trends. They also have special sections for investment ideas, exclusive trading recommendations, independent equity analysis and even lessons from successful investors. 

Content is a key differentiator, as they provide to subscribers information that is not available anywhere else.

Krishnan said, “It is a ruthless focus on the investors and what they want. We spoke to people to understand what kind of coverage they would expect. The backbone of Moneycontrol Pro is our research team. It's an independent, in-house research team that, among other things, looks at stocks that no big brokerage or sell-side brokerage does. So information or analysis of some of these stocks is very difficult to find outside Moneycontrol.”

With markets being interconnected these days, Moneycontrol Pro has also entered into an exclusive editorial content partnership with the Financial Times to provide their subscribers global perspective. “It makes sense for them to understand what's happening around the world and I think FT is best in class when it comes to global markets. So we provide curated content from FT,” he said.

Apart from that they have a learn section on the app, to help people do their own analysis of different sectors, and news commentary, to provide insights. In the last year, they have started monthly webinars called MC Pro Masters Virtual that help users gain a larger perspective on important events that have a bearing on their investments. 

“All these features help people in their wealth creation and their investment journey. We try to answer the questions investors may have,” he added. 

Moneycontrol Pro provides its subscribers a completely ad-free experience and its revenue entirely comes from subscriptions. Krishnan said subscribers are increasingly opening up to the idea of paying for quality content. 

“The good news is that over the last 12 months or so, a lot of organisations are putting their content behind the paywall. And so people are also increasingly becoming open to paying for their content. However, the content has to be top-notch. At Moneycontrol Pro, we strive to stay ahead of others and anticipate what our readers would want and provide that kind of content,” he said. 

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