Expats lacked financial discipline those days

I was 24 when I arrived here on a visa issued by Trucial State Council, in a ship named MV Sardana on July 20, 1970. The ship anchored far away from the Dubai port and the passengers were taken to the shore on a boat. On the same day, I traveled to Sharjah in a car of my friend. You won't believe, the sea water was splashing left side of the now busy Al Ittihad Road, which was a single carriageway.

He took me to an old Arab traditional house, where my relative was living. There was no air conditioner like today. At night everyone used to sleep in the parapet of the house. Those days there were not many social and cultural activities. What we had were open air cinema theatres where Hindi, Pakistani and occasionally old English films screened. Also, if when a person had some financial problem, people were ready to give loan even before they sought one.

As I was from a family of non-resident Indians (NRIs), I always had a special interest in issues of expatriates - My father and paternal uncles were in Ceylon and most of my maternal uncles in Malaysia.

I met two Malayalis who kept their luggage ready to travel to Bombay, but their trip was delayed because they did not have money to buy a ship ticket to Bombay. When I inquired about them, I came to know that lacked financial discipline. They were sending whatever they earned to their home, the family spends it totally. This made me curious and I also learned that most of the Malayali expats were in similar situation. I tried to educate them about the importance of financial planning, savings, and investment.

It was after joining as an accountant in a company, where one of my relatives was working, I got involved in my passionate business of financial management. Seeing people sending money through illegal ways, I started advising them to send money through banks. My strength was an advice from my father who told me never to send money by Hawala and if I sent, he would not touch it whatever be the amount. Those days India was facing acute shortage foreign currency. In two years, I found many people opening bank accounts and sending money through banks. They started asking me what they have to do with the balance amount they have.

My vision was to start full-fledged brokerage house in the UAE, I made three attempts but all in vain. However, my determination and consistent effort gave me a chance to meet Sheikh Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi through one his friend Saud Mazroi. Sheikh Sultan was just 24 years old when we decided to start present Barjeel Geojit Securities LLC, the Indo-UAE joint venture in financial services. I have tremendous satisfaction for being instrumental in the formation of this joint venture, which has equity participation of Kerala government. I am also a shareholder in this company.

In 1990s, when the Gulf repatriation crisis happened, I felt there should be an organised effort to change the situation. I registered a charitable trust called Pravasi Bandhu Welfare Trust in 2001 in India with an objective to create financial discipline, financial planning, saving and investment habits.

After that I got chances to conduct more than 400 classes all over GCC countries for expatriates and more 750 live interactive radio programmes, more than 500 TV programmes. Now I am training others to continue my activities in all GCC countries. I always feel I am blessed to live in this country, especially during the reign of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai

What I noticed is, if people do business within their capacity in this country, they can succeed in business. As for me, my passion became the profession, which later became a business and to a corporate entity, both are progressing side by side.

Source: Khaleej Times