Sharan Hegde revealed what it was like when the media called out “finfluencers” and SEBI came knocking. He spoke at FICCI Frames 2024, with Brut as the cultural partner.
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00:00When I started creating content, I was the first one to create short form content on Instagram.
00:04And media called us finfluencer, cool term back then, right? And I was the poster boy.
00:10And then what happens is once the scam started coming in, the media, they called those fraudsters
00:17also finfluencers, because they use the same tactic to attract that same audience to defraud
00:23them. Now see what happens. Earlier, they called me a finfluencer, and they call these scamsters
00:28a finfluencer. And then Sebi comes up with a paper on finfluencers. Everybody gets branded
00:33and who turns out to be the poster boy. Right? So that ended up happening.
00:41Sharan, you spoke about playing to your strengths. You said that it was, you know,
00:47educating and in the financial education space, where you built your brand. So it's a different
00:53and a tough space, right? You have to keep in mind that you are, there's a lot of regulation.
00:59At this point in time, if you go wrong, there are real repercussions in terms of the advice
01:04that you're giving in. And then you're walking, you know, for brands. So how has that been
01:09for you from a brand deal perspective? Yeah, I mean, the simple,
01:21simple answer is that it's tough, of course, the last one year has been difficult from a
01:30regulation point of view. There's a there's been a lot of so the problem was people who were
01:37committing crimes on who are doing financial frauds. Earlier, they used to do their own ways,
01:44maybe duping people through, you know, SMS or, you know, WhatsApp messages or whatnot.
01:49But once short form content came into the picture, they looked at it as an opportunity to create
01:54content funnel people into telegram channels and then sell products which are illegal or without
02:01having a license from SEBI. And what ended up happening is that when I started creating content,
02:07I was the first one to create short form content on Instagram. And media called us
02:12finfluencer cool term back then. Right? So it was like, okay, this new breed of content creators,
02:18they don't, you know, post selfies and makeup, they actually talk about finance,
02:22they're called finfluencers. So that sort of became very cool. And I was the poster boy,
02:26economic times meant everybody, you know, posting pictures. And I was like, Oh, media is my friend.
02:31Wow, I like this. And then what happens is once the scam started coming in the media,
02:39they called those fraudsters also finfluencers, because they use the same tactic to attract that
02:44same audience to defraud them. Now see what happens earlier, they called me a finfluencer,
02:50and they call these scams of the finfluencer. And then SEBI comes up with a paper on finfluencers,
02:55everybody gets branded and who turns out to be the poster boy. Right? So that ended up happening.
03:02But that's okay. That is that happened about a year back. Now, the number of influencers have
03:09increased actually a lot more. And it has become very easy for the audience to understand now who
03:14is legit, who is not legit. Some of us are also working on getting, you know, getting the licenses
03:19from SEBI. So some announcements will come out very, very soon. But now I'm seeing very recently,
03:26right? I don't know how many how many of you have seen this Bank of India, so Sharon Hector,
03:31how many of you have seen that article on your feed? So a lot of so what is happening,
03:36these fraudsters are using my picture with Karishma Mehta, I did a podcast with Karishma
03:41Mehta on humans of Bombay, they're using that picture, written a fake article,
03:46saying Bank of India sues me. So that is the hook. So you open that article,
03:50you read half of the article, it sounds very believable, like, you know, Sharon said this,
03:55and then Bank of India, you know, sued him. And then midway in that article, it all of a sudden,
04:01becomes an ad for a betting app, that article. So these are the kind of, you know,
04:07in activities that's happening, because of, you know, these fraudsters, and it's
04:14ruining the whole ecosystem. When it comes to brand deals, honestly, because I know the founders,
04:18I know the CMOs of almost all fintech companies. So that's not a problem. The problem is the public
04:25perception. What does the public think about the word finfluencer? And that has been really,
04:31really corrupted in the last one year. And now there's a gigantic effort in front of all the
04:35remaining finfluencers to clean up that due to no fault of our own.