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About

Origins

Moneylife Foundation, launched on 6th February 2010, is a non-profit organisation registered with the Charity Commissioner of Mumbai. The Foundation is engaged in spreading financial literacy, consumer awareness and advocacy and works towards safe and fair market practices through workshops, round table meetings, white papers, research, awareness campaigns, grievance redressal, counselling, petitions etc. We take pride in being fiercely independent, non-partisan and always pro-consumer.

Moneylife Foundation is one of the fastest growing and foremost NGOs for consumers and investors. As a recognition of our efforts, we received the 10th M.R. Pai Memorial Award in September 2014 for our outstanding work.

Mission

Our mission is to make savers & investors financially aware, empower consumers to fight for their rights and citizens to think and act responsibly. We want be the voice to those of us who work hard, earn, save but don t have a say in the decisions that affect us, because we are neither a vote bank nor part of any vested interests.

Our specific objectives are:

  • To create interest in financial markets and enhance financial literacy
  • Protect investors and consumers of insurance, banking and other financial services through information, counselling and grievance redressal.
  • To provide free access to the books to anyone who wants to learn more about finance and investment.
  • To hold regular workshops and expert talks on financial issues.
  • To provide a forum of networking among organizations involved in similar work and also support voluntary organizations working in this area. To collaborate with /assist/support organizations/ NGOs/ civil society groups that engage in public intervention to create a just, fair and a corruption free society.
  • To educate the public of their legal rights in areas of investor protection through literacy programmes.
  • To help prevent corruption and malpractices at all levels at the financial markets.
  • To undertake qualitative and quantitative research and analysis in the areas of finance, economics, politics, public policies, environmental, business and all other allied fields.
  • To provide a forum for committed volunteers and experts to involve themselves in a meaningful way for improvement in financial literacy and consumer protection.
  • To create and promote enlightened public opinion on various issues affecting citizens, investors and consumers.
  • To encourage, support and assist research and studies in financial, economic, social and related areas that affect individuals.
  • To litigate and take any other lawful measures to safeguard the rights and interests of the investors and consumers.
  • To create awareness and a sense of vigilance and responsibility among investors.

Founders & Trustees

  • Sucheta Dalal

    Founder Trustee

    Among the best known financial journalists in India, in 2006, Ms Dalal was awarded the Padma Shri, India government s third highest civilian award, based on her outstanding investigative journalism since the early 1990s. Her 35 years of investigative reporting spans the Harshad Mehta scam, CR Bhansali scam, and expose of Enron among others. She was the Financial Editor at The Times of India and has also written for Business Standard, The Economic Times, Indian Express and Financial Express among others. She served as a member of SEBI s primary market advisory committee, the Narayana Murty Corporate Governance Committee and as a member of Investor Education and the Protection Fund of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. She has co-authored the best-selling book The Scam: From Harshad Mehta to Ketan Parekh and a biography of A D Shroff, a Titan of Finance.

  • Debashis Basu

    Founder Trustee

    A Chartered Accountant with 35 years of experience as a journalist and columnist and the author of several business books, Mr Basu has worked with The Times of India, Business World, Business India, Business Today, Financial Express and has written columns for Business Standard and The Economic Times. He has co-authored the best-selling The Scam: From Harshad Mehta to Ketan Parekh with Sucheta Dalal. He has served as the member of the mutual fund advisory committee of SEBI. He now writes a column for Business Standard every alternate Monday.

  • Walter Vieira

    Marketing, Business & HR Consultant

    Mr Vieira is the former Chairman of the International Council of Management Consulting Institutes (ICMCI - World Apex Body) and a Certified Management Consultant (CMC). He has been a management consultant since 1975 and among the first to be elected a Fellow of the Institute of Management Consultants of India, FIMQ, in 1995. After working in for 14 years with Glaxo, Warner and Boots, he founded the first marketing consultancy firm in India in 1975, Marketing Advisory Services, which worked in the areas of strategic marketing, industrial market research, customer satisfaction measurement, and in-company training. He is the author of 14 books and visiting Professor at US Business schools, columnist and international circuit speaker.

  • T S Krishnamurthy

    Former Chief Election Commissioner

    Mr Krishnamurthy was India s Chief Election Commissioner from February 2004 to May 2005. He conducted the 2004 General Elections, which used Electronic Voting Machines first. Starting as a probationary officer at Bank of India, joined the Indian Revenue Service in 1963 and became Commissioner of Income Tax, Chennai in 1986. In January 1997 he was the first IRS to be appointed as Secretary, Government of India. His initiatives resulted in improved corporate governance and investor protection. He is also responsible for creating the Investor Education & Protection Fund.

Our Work

Our work encompasses the following areas:

1. Awareness Sessions: We spread financial literacy and awareness about the rights of consumers and citizens through workshops, lectures, articles and awareness campaigns. We have conducted sessions on banking, aadhaar, real estate, consumer awareness, right to information, food & health, senior citizens issues, taxation and documentation, and many others.

2. Daily Counselling Sessions: As direct solutions to the problems that savers, consumers and citizens face, we guide them through one-on-one counselling.

3. Helplines: We run two free helplines with the help of our voluntary advisors and experts. The Legal Helpline offers guidance on vast variety of legal issues and real estate matters especially those pertaining to cooperative housing societies; the Credit Helpline guides people in financial distress on dealing with loan defaults, credit scores and so on

4. RTI Centre: We run a Right to Information Centre that was launched in September 2017 to create awareness on the Right to Information Act. More about it, below.

5. Research Projects: We take up specific issues that affect a large number of people look influence policy changes through in-depth research and recommendations that can benefit a large section of the population whose voice today does not reach the policymakers. We published research reports on Retirement Homes in India and on Reverse Mortgage Loans in India.

6. Representations: We advocate for safe and fair market practices through workshops, round table meetings, research and memorandums. Here are some of our important representations:
- Letter of Suggestions on improving BEST
- Memorandum to RBI on Bank ATM Charges
- Senior Citizens Issues
- Memorandum on Improving Mumbai Suburban Rail Network
- Memorandum on excess interest charged by banks under base rate and MCLR regime
- Letter to IRDA on fraud selling of Life Insurance products by Reliance Life and Bharti Axa Life

7. Legal Action: At times, we have also filed public interest litigations (PILs) on matters that have affected our members and have taken it up with the Supreme Court. Our recent PILs have been on LIC s Jeevan Saral and egregious bank charges that consumers are paying.

The foundation has set up Moneylife Knowledge Centre, a lecture hall and reading room with more than a thousand books on business, economics and finance. Although among the smallest, Moneylife is the only media company to have taken this kind of non-profit initiative.

RTI Centre

The Right to Information (RTI) Centre was launched in September 2017 with generous support from Mr Dinesh Thakur (Whistleblower of Ranbaxy s practices). The Centre s aim is to spread the awareness on Right to Information (RTI) Act and to bring about more transparency and accountability in governance. The RTI Centre conducts seminars, workshops, events and programmes in colleges, institutes in and around Mumbai and Pune for spreading awareness about the Act. Besides this, it also conducts special workshops for the Public Information Officers (PIOs) on RTI. The programmes are conducted by eminent RTI experts such as Central Information Commissioner (CIC) Mr Shailesh Gandhi, Mr Vijay Kumbhar, Mr Anil Galgali, Ms Vinita Deshmukh and others. The centre also runs a guidance clinic every Wednesday to help in resolving queries of people and on-spot filing of RTI applications.

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Events

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Representations

Moneylife Foundation was set up in 2010 with the realisation that consumers, savers, investors or essentially tax-paying middle class Indians, need advocacy, counselling, and sometimes litigation to make their voices heard. As part of this effort, over the years Moneylife Foundation has submitted over 50 Memorandums & Representations.

Such representations on behalf of concerned citizens and consumers have been covered topics such as financial concerns of senior citizens, nefarious MLM schemes, Life & Health insurance, mis-selling by banks, ATM charges, LIC Jeevan Saral, reckless lending by mutual funds and more.

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Articles About Us

Over the years, the work that we have done and continue to do, has been covered by some media organisations. The expanding list below provides a brief look at our work and achievements.

Code of Governance

Moneylife Foundation: Governing Principles

Debashis Basu and Sucheta Dalal, two well-known journalists, who also run Moneylife, a personal finance online weekly magazine and a daily web news service, have set up Moneylife Foundation. They felt the need to set up an independent and dedicated not-for-profit organisation to spread financial literacy and advocacy based on their experience of the widespread lack of awareness about financial products and rampant mis-selling.

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Moneylife Group

Moneylife Magazine
A weekly online personal finance magazine which was launched as a fortinightly print magazine in 2006. It has published some of most deeply-researched articles on gold, mutual funds, fixed income, stocks, insurance, collecting, best ways to save for your children, wills & nomination and even harmful drugs.

Moneylife News & Views
Moneylife is among the most ethical media companies and is known for calling a spade a spade. This is reflected in our vibrant news and views portal (www.moneylife.in), which puts out information that is of direct relevance to investors, consumers and citizens. We send out a daily and weekly newsletter to over a lakh of readers.

Moneylife Advisory Services
A SEBI-registered, online financial advisor which provides ethical advice and quality information, backed by a decade of rigorous, unbiased research. MAS offers deeply-researched shortlist of investment and insurance products, a market-timing and asset-allocation tool and continuous online support. MAS is also a SEBI-registered portfolio manager and offers stock advice

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