Sitting Down with Jay Patel - FinTech PRO

This week, FinTech Pro owner, Jay Patel, joins Marcus and I for a chat about his start in India, the development of the Indian economy, rivalry with China and Irelands Ferrari on a Country Road! Hope you enjoy.

Warning: This podcast does not constitute financial or tax advice.  Please contact a financial advisor or tax advisor to discuss your own individual circumstances, taking into account your needs and objectives, knowledge and experience and financial situation.

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SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to Cash Labs. My name is Paul Molloy from BoxcoverTax.ie and this is Marcus Doyle from Clear Financial. We're here to take the mystery out of money and finance with some history, some stories, and plenty of humor to the Julia. Okay, uh hello there everyone. Today we have a real trace uh Marcus and I have our first guest on the podcast. Absolutely. This is uh Jay Battel. Not only is uh he's he's the he's the MD of uh FinTech Pro, is that correct to say? Yeah. Accounting firm in Dublin. Um not only is Jay, as you'll discover, a very uh sophisticated and charismatic man, he's also immediately the most handsome man in this room. And here. No offense, Marcus, but uh I had a five more and let's write that look as good as I used to.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

You know, you know, you know. So he is a very handsome man, look at that.

SPEAKER_03 1:04

So Jay less than you, Marcus, I'd say less than you.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

Ah, you're being too kind. Jay, you went when you're growing up in India, you um uh you're only you're only here 10 years. So most of your life was in India, but you went to an English-speaking school, is that right? Yes, that's right. How did that happen and what was your parents' motivation? You might tell us something about that.

SPEAKER_03 1:24

So, first of all, I'd say Paul and Marcus, thanks for having me here. It's been a pleasure. And uh growing up in India, as I grew up in India, as you said, in a very middle class environment. Mom being a culchi, you know, and uh dad a city man uh living and working in the diamond industry. Uh an offspring of them, I felt like Bombay has scale. Mumbai is today the modern day name Mumbai, back then Bombay is something which is a very densely populated place and where people would come from villages to make their dreams come true. And one fine wish within my mom's heart was I suppose that if I can't communicate very well in English, when a question being thrown at me, my child wouldn't suffer this. Uh there's been a good representation among Catholics in Mumbai, per se, as a city, just because the Christian missionaries came and they set up the schools. The infrastructure was already built by the British back then. So there's a cathedral, and then there are five buildings next to the cathedral or the church, and that becomes your government-aided school. So my schooling happened in St. Francis D. Assisi.

unknown 2:42

Ah.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

Catholic.

SPEAKER_03 2:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

Like my school. Yeah. Flounds of chesu as well. St. Francis of Assisi. That's very good.

SPEAKER_03 2:49

Yeah. So the prayer of Saint Francis was there on the wall with the photograph or like the like the image of Saint Francis. Make me a channel of the peace. And that's how we used to recite daily. The culture came across as that a practicing Hindu at home in school, you're going there in a Catholic convent, English medium school. So that was very that was a first step in itself where I felt that education as it has been seen and has been experienced by me firsthand is a little bit different from an average Indian. And having said that, to answer your question, is Mum's wish and uh kind of an ambition that he should go to something like that, where he can go outside of India, where the vision can be outside of India, the spectrum can be broad, and the communication can go across borders.

SPEAKER_00 3:40

Wow. I think I I think you know that that uh saying in a song for song version that we used to sing at school, but I won't I won't ruin your ears. No, no, I won't uh a little bit rusty this morning. Yeah, make me a channel of your piece. Yeah, there you go.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

So, Jay, um what took you to Ireland and can you tell us a bit about FinTech Pro and how you've built it up?

SPEAKER_03 4:04

So I'd suppose that we'll transition the first question, as you just said, about how the education went there. The mindset was always that you know you wanted a bigger stage and a better quality of life. But if you say that if you are an Indian product with the exam culture, because it's too much of competitiveness there and the pressure is huge, every child is racing against the other. And that has inherently come from the expectation of parents as well. The society has that kind of a thing that, oh, the neighbor's daughter or son is a doctor and engineer. What are you capable of doing? So, as a product of that exam culture, I'd say that, but the global mindset was from the schooling and where I went, one of the best colleges is the Nursey Manji College of Commerce and Economics, one of the greatest producers of chartered accountants in India. There are only 200,000 Indian chartered accountants, or 250 by now, let's say, as members for a for a big population. The exam results are controlled in such a way that back in the day when I passed out in 2012, the result was 2.5%. As such negligible that every hundred students who appear, only 2.5 are going to be passed out. The exams, if you just Google it, are one of the best competitive exams in India. After the Indian Institute of Management, the cream, Dala Cream crowd would go to the Indian Institute of Management, and those are the people, IIT and IIMs, are your CEOs and CFOs of big tech companies. So that rigorous process of Indian Chartered Accountancy or the AIMS, the Indian Medical Association's entrance exam. There are people who go out to study. I was lucky that I managed to get into chartered accountancy, manage the education there. Once I became a chartered accountant, I said that I have many options. And you start out with a good package and a salary. So it takes you, let's say, 300 Indian thousand rupees, which is around 3,000 euros in modern days currency, to get passed out to do all your three years of examination. But your first salary is 600 Indian thousand rupees, which is 6,000 euros. So the return on investment if you become an Indian chartered accountant within the Indian economy is great. Forget about the outside economy. If you go outside economy, it's times four. So I started off working with Protivity Consulting, and uh that's where the international clients, I was my first visa stamp was Germany, where the client wanted us to go out and do an audit internal process review to Germany. And then you're a Bombay boy. You said that okay, I'm gonna go to Europe. That that was scrapped, by the way, and the assignment didn't kick off, but I got the visa. And then the second opportunity was when I was working for J Bil, and J Bill said, Well, you come to us as a consultant, but we have an internal opening. Would you want to apply for that? I said, I can't do that because I'm a consultant and there are rules that I can't go on the client side because of conflict of interest. And the manager said that, well, listen, that's not your worry. If we like your work and we'll get you over here, we'll have a negotiation with your management. And that's how I came to J Will. J Bil had international plans, and I was traveling back and forth from 2015 to open until 2017, 2016, that year and a half, 2014 to 2016, I remember. Uh, back from Bombay, Europe, Bombay, America, go to Southeast Asia, Singapore, Malaysia, and woke in all three locations. A lot of traveling. A lot of traveling. One bag had the dental kit and a few toiletries and things which I need, and the other set is at home. You come home and you said that pack my lunch and something because you don't find vegetarian food somewhere in Vietnam. You still have your pack, like how Irish people would carry tato chips to Australia. Sausages. So traveling, traveling, exposure, and then I found Ireland had a spot, and in 2016 I got here. Work life balance. I felt that my soul exactly fits into this land. It's just because the welcoming nature of people, and there's something in you, and there's something in the other person. I always say that. That element has to click. And once that is clicked, two years, enterprising attitude was always there. And I said that two years I got my visas, now what should I do next? Wife said that your groceries are on me for a year and a half. Get out, do something. If you can't, you come back to the job. The job market will absorb you always, but you'll not have a regret. And that's how fintech pro works. That's not how fintech pro 2019, from the table, my lunch table, where I used to have in my kitchen, both husband and wife, we decided that let's do FinTech Pro. 2020, Mukesh came along, and that's how that's history now.

SPEAKER_01 8:52

Look, we might we might come back to to to fintech pro later on, but um one of the I suppose one of the things we wanted to to learn from you, Jay, is is just a bit about I suppose the economic life of India, how it's developed, and we might just start with which is always so shocking to me, how uh the East India Company somehow took over India. How on earth did that happen?

SPEAKER_03 9:18

If you zoom out the story of uh Britain and India, it starts with trading and uh ends with an empire.

SPEAKER_00 9:27

You know all the same problem. Can I get rid of them?

SPEAKER_03 9:32

The East India Company came in as a chartered trading company in around 1600. Yeah. And as a trading company, monopoly on the trade to the East spices, textiles, and all that kind of products. And suddenly, but over two centuries, it has morphed into a political and a military power on the ground in India. Through a mix of warfare and alliances with Indian rulers, the company came to control or influence large parts of subcontinent after the major rebellion of 1857.

SPEAKER_01 10:03

That's right. That's right, that's right.

SPEAKER_03 10:04

And that's when London decided that the private company shouldn't run a whole country. So the Government of India Act 1858 came on top and transferred its territory to the British Crown, and that's where the era of British Raj began. So if you just see the timeline, 1600 as traders, and then something happened in 1858, and London decides that we'll have an act, and these petty farmers and people who have who have a little bit of skill, but not as skillful and organized as us. So few people had a major power to outpower the Indian mass, and they were being ruled by the British. And I feel that if you see that how a limited company went into trade textiles and tea and came out having accidentally created as an umpire, it's it's it's not an accidental thing, it's it's a supplanning effort, and there's been many colonies, including Ireland, has been suffered that. But there was something there where when we were fighting with swords and sticks, you know, they had guns and stuff. That was a time when they came up with a heavy strategic way of taking over India. So that's that's something which I would I would put in as like if if you see the bill for that empire was paid on the chaotic years right after independence, partition violence. We might talk, we might even assassination of Gandhi.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

We might touch on that because this is uh, you know, post-World War II, Britain is beyond broke. And there's no money to pay for the empire. And they got out of Israel in 48, and I think they got out of India. Was it the same year, Jay? That the British left in 48?

SPEAKER_03 11:48

19 1947, August.

SPEAKER_01 11:50

47. And then what happened?

SPEAKER_03 11:52

So if you'd see that from 1858, as I quoted, till 47, there were civil disobedience movements and non-cooperation, and the Indian revolutionaries were trying to get rid of them. Of course, Gandhi had its own way of dealing with it, being in non-violence, truth, and satyagra, which is basically non-cooperation, peaceful protests. But there were a l other revolutionaries who didn't believe in in that kind of ideology, and they would just go and they daylight would kill a British officer for that matter. And this turmoil, unorganized way of managing has taken more years. But what happened after 1947, and I'd say 14th of August, the night of 14th of August 1947, and six months before, the Red Cliff Line dividing two nations, India and Pakistan, previously known as the Indian subcontinent, is now divided into two nations, with India being a republic power, where Gandhi says that if anybody who's Hindu or following Islam would want to freely live in India, they can. But on the other side, Pakistan says that we are welcoming only the Muslims as an Islamic state. So what has been created by Britain, I think the same thing what you referenced in Israel's case, I think wherever they left, they they they they left with something which is still bothering the nations, whether it's Northern Ireland and Ireland, whether it's Israel, Palestine, whether it's India, Pakistan, and the issue of Kashmir.

SPEAKER_00 13:22

Whatever happened ago, they they destroy everything.

SPEAKER_03 13:25

Yeah, yeah, yeah. A bit is what what my feeling is beyond what charities they do or what they've given us, but these points were so a lot of people were uprooted. And I see after 1947, a lot of people came from Pakistan to India, they left their resources there, their lands, their property. Overnight, if somebody tells you that you'll have to leave, just imagine what you go through. And that's that's been stories. People have been alive, there's been movies, documentaries on this. And over the years, I would say that India has progressed in waves, but the trajectory is upwards. Yeah. It has taken its own time as compared to China and the other allies in Southeast Asia. But just tell me, one highest dominating English-speaking crowd in Asia, one republic, as I say that we we we understand republican values as both India and Ireland, as we call ourselves as Republic of India. People of any caste and religion are allowed to practice their religion in India. The volume, the scale, the population, and yet the tolerance is what makes me think that the country is sometimes run by a supernatural power. You're walking somewhere and something might happen to you. Over here, you have your options or insurance, do this, do that. There's so many people below the poverty line who don't understand the concept of insurance. There's nothing to fall back upon. Yet the country is moving forward. Yet you see demographics that there's some people who are leading your Fortune 500s, your Google, your Amazon, your Twitter, and your Microsoft, all four having Indian CEOs and management. Your Bank of Ireland has uh appointed the head of AI is Prakshar Mainum on LinkedIn through via some other contacts as well. He's going to be the head of AI in Bank of Ireland, has got his first senior official. A friend of mine, he heads the cybersecurity in AIB uh, apparently. Uh and this is what I have seen that huge demographics. A lot has happened since 1947. Um, in terms of economics, in terms of policies, in terms of political powers shift from the Indian National Congress. You'd see the last three terms are from the BJP, which is a different party than the Indian National Congress, which is not the Gandhi Nehru and the family. So that has brought a good amount of light to India, whether it's America's or whether it's Far East. The Prime Minister has traveled, uh the Foreign Minister traveled after nearly 40 years, somebody traveled from India to Ireland, and that was last year. And he decided to choose and have a convention in the UCD as to see that what has helped India and what has helped Ireland is education. Because Ireland heavily invested in the education. Ireland has now got the IFSC, Ireland has got the IFSC since 1990s, and India has now made the IFSC the same name, Gift CD, International Financial Service Centre, where people can bank in multiple currencies, the money still stays there. So that's all the trajectory which I'm talking about.

SPEAKER_01 16:29

Absolutely. And um I suppose we we have our own view of the Irish economy, you know, with there's there was really nothing before the Celtic Tiger. The 80s were very, very dreadful time to be honest, economically, a lot of emigration. And then we had this this build-up, and you know, we we got a bit obsessed with property, we had the crash, took a while to recover, and it looks like it's going well now. But in your 10, because you're here 10 years, Jay. So you you were you arrived when we started to to to to improve a bit. Like what's just what's what's kind of the the picture you've seen, or how do you see the Irish economy today or or in the past?

SPEAKER_03 17:08

What I'd see is that when I came here, or when I got the offer that there's a role in Ireland, and would you want to, the first thing you do as an Indian person is just to try to Google that what the country is. Three things what I see in common with an Indian perspective, or from a Baby boy to go to be a Dublinaire. Mumbaiker being a Dublinair is what I see is that they drive the same side, not the same way, which is good. There's a little bit more uh civilized way of being on the road, uh bearing a few areas in Dublin where you go, you know yourself, but uh, you know, the the kind of history which it has, the tricolor which it has, the dominance of agriculture and have an agrarian economy through coming into service sector and tertiary sectors. So my eyes said that okay, fine, this if if it's in the Eurozone and if it's not England, but it's an English-speaking country, I think I'll be okay. And those were my initial assessment because you can't research everything on day one. Being outside of the waters will not make, if you be longer, not make the water warmer. The the sea's water is still going to be the same temperature. You are being outside thinking too much whether I should plunge in or not. So few basic things, whether there are rocks there or not, am I gonna hit hard or so? Are there people swimming in there? If that's enough to know, and then you go in and you experience. So my experience was that this, and in 10 years' time, if you say and sum it up in a sentence, I would say that this is a Ferrari engine sitting on a countryside road. This country, and I have thought many times before making this statement, is just Irish economy is heavily dependent on tech and a few large corporations. There's profit shifting, as we know from finance and tax perspectives. And that is the resource which Ireland's exchequer is getting at the moment. But how we utilize that and how that is going to transgrace the progress, the infrastructure, you know, it's still on the machine is still on the narrow roads, which has potholes like housing challenges, which has policy making needs to be very much upfront at this age now. In 2026, we don't have a direct train or a metro from Dublin International Airport to town where any major city has it. So there are certain areas which go unnoticed, but if we see them, we say that this is high time now. We need to change.

SPEAKER_01 19:38

I think it's easier for you to say it. Yeah. It's easier for someone who's not born here. I I think uh I think policymakers can and probably have, they're not stupid. They have tried to move us in a certain direction. And I think there's just internal dynamics in whether that's civil servants, whether that's just the culture way, it's just the way of doing things, that has prevented us doing what is obvious to do, the airport being at the you know, the the rail to the airport uh being a great example. I mean, it's it is it is a bit embarrassing. But um that's uh not something we we we we can fix today.

SPEAKER_03 20:13

Um but but but I I just want to add on on this thing and and to to say that, yeah, there are challenges and it will take time. I understand that the GDP per capita among the highest in the world. And it's all thanks to the multinationals, as we said. But if you see the SMEs, which virtually make up all the private enterprises in Ireland and a large majority of the private sector, that is the sector which we deal with day in and day out. Yourself, myself, we have got clients from that area, be it a small tech firm, contractors, restaurants, property companies, all battling high labor, all battling energy and insurance cost. And so that makes me say that you know Ireland is like a Ferrari engine sitting on a countryside road. The whole idea is that India has taught me scale, and Ireland has taught me margins. And my job is to help small businesses survive between these two realities. As as we all of us are being seen, and I'm sure you have been in different geographies, you have you've worked or you have got a chance to travel around. As a smaller economy, what we battle, and you said you are I I completely agree that it's easier said for somebody who's not born here. Inherently there are many challenges, but over the last 10 years, there's been a good amount of shift, there's been progress being seen, but the trajectory is similar, like in the waves. You know, it's up and down, up and down, but going in the right trajectory. Hopefully.

SPEAKER_01 21:37

Hopefully, some stage. Speaking of trajectory, how do you see the India com Indian economy and how it's say I'd be curious to know how the the the 2008 crash affected or didn't affect India and how it's developed since then?

SPEAKER_03 21:50

I'd say that over the last 15 years, India has been one of the fastest grow growing economies, large economies, right? And the growth almost for all these years you have seen. In the range of 5 to 8%. And strong periods have seen around mid 10, 2010, you'd see around 7%, and a sharp contraction during the COVID in 2020, and then a powerful rebound of 9% in 2021. The recent estimates put a growth again around 6 to 7% in 2004 and 2005, which is remarkably for a country well over a billion people of population. So that kind of sustained growth is driven by a mix of services, manufacturing, and infrastructure. And that is a huge push on digital systems. Things like the ID system. We have an Aadar ID system, it's similar to like how you have a PPSN over here. The GST reform. Everybody else uses the VAT. We have one tax, one way, one administration indirect tax office, which is the GST, the goods and service tax. Similar like what? A multi-point indirect tax system. But the payments which go digitalized, the way this has been done at a faster scale. I see that today is a developing country, India, with enormous challenges, but economically it's moved from being a future potential to being a current engine of global growth. And why what makes me say this is that sometimes India doesn't grow in straight lines, and as we said, that it grows in waves. But waves are still consistently going upwards, transitioning, if you see the bigger global companies, Bombay and Mumbai, what I see there is Southeast Asia is one of the biggest stock exchanges, Mumbai Stock Exchange. The National Stock Exchange of India has a few handful of companies, which are now global powerhouses. You see the Landover and Jaguar Group, which is over here in Galway. We think that that's a British company or that's some other company which has been uh headquarters over here, but it's inherently 100% owned by the Tata Group. The Tata Group. Yeah, Tata Group. So it's a challenge. So Tata Motors and Tata means trust. There's a recent documentary which is which is going around and it says the Made in India story, the Titan. And I'm watching at the moment as to how Bombay was back in the 70s, 80s, and 60s, and how Tata, J.R.D. Tata, the founder, he said that I used to see the Swiss watches, the quartz watches, as a symbol of excellence, but I'm seeing now that they are a symbol of arrogance. When India went and tried to go and collaborate, they were being said, and in Tata stories, the example the books are filled with such examples. The result of Land Rover Jaguar being known by the Tata is also a story of arrogance. We'll touch some other day when you know Tata's try to tell Ford to buy off the Tata motors because they were not doing well. Ford low-balled the offer. When Ford had a problem, Tata generously accepted and you know took over the the motor company from Ford. So that's that's the best success. You know, the the revenge is the way you work and how you deal with things. Your work will produce things, and you don't need to say. And that's the same when Titan was born, the the biggest watch company, 34 rupees on the stock exchange. Wow. And some of the biggest traders in India have enjoyed whooping profits by selling them at 2400. Imagine the scale and the time of you buy it at 34, you sell it. Rakesh Junjunwala, biggest trader in Mumbai, is a chartered accountant since he said that known practice, but he's one of the biggest investors and traders of all time. And he said that this is how Indian economy has grown. Like you see the index of the Bombay Stock Exchange, the Sense is what we call, which is like the NYSC. Yeah. So if that has been, when I was a child, I've seen that at 4,000 to 8,000. I used to come back from school and the TV is on, and the little strip showing the the stock prices and the index, and my dad is watching it and he just does phone calls sometimes and buys them. And I said, This is 8,000? Okay. Today it's 80,000. If in 20 years, the index, which is basically the number which measures all the companies listed on the stock exchange. Yes, we are having scams. Yes, we do have problems. Yes, there are investigations in between, there are crashes in between. 08 crash was a bigger crash, to answer Paul's question for the Western world. India was still struggling and surviving during that phase because we were not as overhyped on the American power as the rest of the world was. We always say that why Ireland had a tough time is because if UK and US they sneeze, Ireland gets a cold. We are not a dependent economy as in such a way. We are still an indigenous economy. Not fully indigenous, like how China does it. They have their vendors across the road, no logistics cost. And that's how China has progressed and their manufacturing capabilities are way high than India.

SPEAKER_01 27:09

Is that not happening? Because my my sense of India is there's an awful lot of wealth on the kind of, if you look at India, like it's like a big V in some ways. And on the coasts, we have Mumbai on the on the on the west coast, and with Calcutta on the Calcutta on the east, yeah. And so is there like China, is there interior parts or provinces in India that could could become new new new manufacturing workers when the get the wages get too expensive on the coast? Is that happening?

SPEAKER_03 27:37

Sorry, so interior parts, yes, people who are in the interior parts would travel out to the ports. You see any cities in the world wherever there are ports, they flourish because of jobs and trade and innovation and all that kind of thing. So people do travel from Do the companies. Do the companies travel.

SPEAKER_01 27:56

Do the companies bring. So this is what what China has managed to do. It's still the strongest manufacturing exporter in all not just the the the the expensive stuff, but like the the cheapest stuff that they thought they would lose into Indonesia and Vietnam. That hasn't really happened. They've managed to keep a lot of manufacturing within China. And that's what I see a potential for India to do is to as the if the coast gets wealthier, I think that there's the opportunity to outsource in source, if you like, to to the in to the provinces inside.

SPEAKER_03 28:26

That's 100% the case. So if you see Mumbai and Pune, they're twin cities. Pune is on the inside of not the not being on the coast. Pune enjoys in the last 10 years a whooping growth in real estate. It's not only the tech world, but if you see your BMW, Mercedes, and your Volkswagen group have their setup companies in Chakan area in Pune. That's where the whole town, which is probably in the same square meters area of like Dublin, is just the auto world. Imagine that that's where the scale is where people would come in from neighboring towns and cities from inside who were previously farmers or sons of people who have traditionally been into farming, have moved out to not to Mumbai, but to Pune. Fishakapatnam is a coast, but if you go inside as well, there are small towns and villages which have been now on the on the on the on the east side. I'm talking Calcutta as well. Calcutta enjoyed this during the time, but it's it's its progress has been stagnant over the years. And I would say that it didn't enjoy the same amount of trajectory as Mumbai did or some other places. But Delhi, for example, right, the political capital up in the north is a landlocked place. It's not a port or something. But Gurgaon, which is a part of Delhi, outside of the suburban area of Delhi, has progressed and has come up as a very, you know, fruitful place for corporates and businesses. And the land planning has been done in such a way because the modern planning, when it comes, they learn from the past as to how cramped we were in a small area. So the diversity and density and the planning of roads and everything gets a little bit more. So interiors also have been enjoying that. The real thing lies when this small interior places get connected via roadways and railways to bigger major towns. That's where you see how we see, and how I see England as a place is that every small place as well, other than London, has good connectivity with London over the years. Same as with Paris. So progress will come when the smaller, but you're very right in saying, Paul, that factories and things when they go inside and in-house when they manufacture, but their connectivity is very important because they will have to come to the ports for exports.

SPEAKER_01 30:51

You were saying, Jay, when we talked before, about Delhi and where it is, and it's very deliberately being placed away from the border areas. And you want to explain how that happened and why that happened?

SPEAKER_03 31:03

I'd say that with my limited knowledge, or I'd uh, you know, ever since I have heard, you see, you go back behind the British times and you'd see that the Mughals ruled India. And Delhi, before that, Mughals also, where there are Indian kings and princely states, Delhi was always considered to be the prominent place, is just because from Delhi they used to govern the northern part of India, which is up and until Gujarat. The east and the west was equidistant. Up north are the Himalayas, which has been a guiding factor for India. There's still today 3,400 kilometers of mountain range between India and China, which is not demarked. Anyone can come in there, anything can happen. In 2020, there was a there was a massacre. The Galvan Valley assault. 20 soldiers, Indians died, and four Chinese. And that whole thing happens on the Pakistan side of border as well. So the Himalayas governed the north, Delhi is in the center, east and west, same distance. And Deccan was the area. Never been heard about this area because it's not an official term we use. But this was before the British, it used to call it as Dakhan, which became Deccan. The Deccan Valley is the V shape which you see in India and all four states down, Hyderabad being the capital on the eastern side. So Deccan was the only prominent place where a different princely slate and a ruler would be, will still be termed as an Indian land or the Indian subcontinent, as you would say, India as a whole. But this is how it was divided. If Delhi is ordering something that happens into the northern region, he needs to buy, the king of Delhi has to buy in the Nizam of Hyderabad to have that rule been enforced into the whole South and North. And that was the role, you know, after the British, that there was some uh, you know, political uh awareness at the same time the reason of India being a union of all 500 princely states, 563 princely states, which we'll speak in a moment.

SPEAKER_01 33:14

So what we meant you mentioned China. Um how is the relationship with India and China? It's a bit testy at times, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 33:22

I'd say that right now, as we discussed about the Gavin Valley incident, yeah. So it has always been uh, you know, strategically uh aligned uh in some way or form or shape, but there's been mistrust in this relationship over the years. The 64 war had also had a problem. China has some amount of or land been and there's been encroaching happening on the eastern side of states. The government is deliberately trying to govern the borders on the Chinese side more as just because we see that it's a superpower in in Asia. And it's always been there's always been mistrust there, and and the whole idea is that after this incident, there's been talks on both sides, and now that the borders have been open, visas, flights, direct flights have been now scheduled. But over the years there's been stop and on, on and stop. So this has been always that it's undoubtedly a competition to India in many ways. The way China happens to enjoy the access to the Indian Ocean is also very strategic by lending money to Sri Lanka and then Colombo doesn't repay and then they have a port suddenly there. They have a port. Yeah. So that that whole thing is that they are always, we feel that in technology as well as in manufacturing capability, a step ahead. They are a step ahead. If you just go down in the construction industry in Ireland, I'll give you a small little example. Somebody phone called me from um here in Dublin and he said that we are looking out for these fasteners. I can give you the uh the product description and I can give you a sample. Currently, we buy this and source this from China. But you, I think, with your kind of connections in Gujarat, would you find somebody who can give this quality? We couldn't find it. The top guy in India is also not able to produce it with the same chemical composition. So the investment required to manufacture that is huge. And the why that chemical composition is necessary in UK and Ireland is because of the weather. Or Western Europe for that matter, because it rains, the moisture, the damp, and that's what they have researched. They're always one step ahead in the manufacturing. And at the same time, they know that after China, anybody else in that region is India. There are some places where we are ahead, and which is the service sector, is the language. So we see that borders normally, people who enjoy the same border, they look and they they they have some things in common. See India and China. They're very different from we don't look the same, we don't eat the same necessarily. We don't wear the same, our language is different, our cultures are different. Very different, very different. It's a different kind of a world. Yeah, you'd say South Korea, North Korea, Japan. They would it'd be hard for you to just meet a person on the street and gauge and judge whether it's from China or Japan. But that won't happen between India and China. It's very easy.

SPEAKER_01 36:24

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So and what about the Jay the relationship with the US? How because uh what from what I understand was that the kind of the early post-independence governments wanted to be non-aligned, which meant not in the communist camp, not in the American camp, just independent, and how I suppose Pakistan decided to t to go a different route to India in terms of alliances and over the years I feel that India and US have also uh got into a relationship where trade and business has flourished, but it's been always a watch over that.

SPEAKER_03 37:01

We have done military exercises together in the region. India has been always advocating, and the presidential visit in 2020 had three things coming out from it is basically that we would want to have alliances in terms of technology, in terms of uh military and you know, governing and guarding borders, ensuring that terrorism goes down, and the whole advocacy is that weapons and arms, you know, the way Russia and America are the biggest weapon dealers in in the globe. And whom you give a gun really depends on whether he's gonna be terrorist or he's gonna be protecting his lands. And that demarcation needs to happen, and that was very clear in the Moody government that where he had mentioned this about, and all in all, today, as we see the relationship between India and America, is that it's a very strategic relationship of trade, of protection, governing your borders, and at the same time ensuring that where technology is being shared and both demographics are being growing. India has been seen as a cultural partner by US as well. And Modi's visit over there also ensured that how an average Indian's income in America is way beyond the normal America, Americans as well, who are living there. It's a capitalistic economy. If you'd see, we have, as we said, that we have come through the route of competitiveness and we try and think in a critical way, and we are naturally hard workers been working, and that's been acknowledged as a good amount of Dasapora is a tax-paying Dasapura in the US. So there's been a good amount of alliance, I would say, but it's it's always to keep a watch on, is what Indians believe. And Indian government as well believes. Sometimes we don't agree to their stances, which makes them a little bit uh, you know, uh annoyed, as I would put it.

SPEAKER_00 38:53

And does that, Jay, going from your previous point, does that affect your relationship with China? Because China had always been against America, and they may see you're going more aligning with America economically in trade.

SPEAKER_01 39:03

It has a good relationship with Russia, always has. And that hasn't ended with the Ukraine war.

SPEAKER_00 39:07

Yeah, which is yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:08

Delicate.

SPEAKER_03 39:09

You're kind of balancing all the powers. All the powers has been seen over the years, and especially in the last five years, has been geopolitically very disturbing. And when you are being told off that not to buy oil from Russia, well, the Europe feels that okay, India has been doing something. But Europe, and our foreign minister rightly said that Europe needs to understand in such a way that it's always been Europe's problems are Europe's problems. India's problems are not Europe's problems. So it's more kind of that if you see India as a as a country can't go and always will have to be a puppet into this whole story. Russian ties have always helped India to look after Indians first. Is that when any country tried to see about their citizens first, is when the political instability happens. India over the years have tried to be that, but Russia has been, you know, infinitely been a great support, and that has been to our advantage. Between China and America, we would say that, you know, we'd have to be very cautious of both economies. As, you know, the only people who would want to see you grow is your own. They say, you know, other than that, outside world will always want to do, want to see you doing better, but not better than them. That's the story between America and China. China will always be mindful of our exports. They'll be always seeing as to how industrially good we are doing. In the service sector, how so the service sector is the only area which India enjoys predominantly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:46

And so finally, Jake, can you tell Jay, can you tell us something about FinTech Pro, the business that you're on?

SPEAKER_03 40:51

I'd say that FinTech Pro uh has been seven years this day as we speak, uh, been working uh uh as a as a founder managing partner at FinTech Pro. Our goal when I came and when I started FinTech Pro was that let's have a tech-driven practice as compared to the traditional shoebox receipts practice. So, how we can do that, and there's a gap here. And you know, about three or four years ago, uh one of my close friends started off that practice in Florida, and I could see the success what he's enjoying. And I see that slowly it will come on over here, and that's how tech-driven, more kind of tech-driven, I'd say, trust and holding hands of people where they don't understand numbers. So we go down to that level, we break it down for them, and more customized as an approach, I would say that today we enjoy more than 400 SME clients which we have served in the IBC community. So we have come a long way in this journey with these three elements, and FinTech Pro today strives to grow. And I think that an initial aim when I started, I said that I would easily go up and until 1 million, from 1 million to 1.5 million worth of revenues is where you'll have to strategically see as to how you can grow in an Irish market per se. And so slowly and slowly, I'd say that I'd not deny we have gone halfway of 1 million. And then the coming years we'll still chase that target and to be there. At the same time, grow on other avenues as well. So investing for self and learning, helping clients to see not only accounting tax and advisory, but advisory practice will grow over the years, is what we anticipate.

SPEAKER_01 42:36

Well, Jay, um, listen, thanks very much for for coming in today. Uh, like I said, we're we're we're delighted to have had our first guest, and that'd be you. Um it's been very, very interesting learning all about you and your journey and India's journey as well. And thanks for sharing that. So um I think we'll leave it there, folks. Yeah, thanks very much, Jay. Thanks very much. I think the pleasure is entirely mine, lads. And we'll uh we'll see you all again in two weeks. Thanks very much.