By Asha Menon
One of the biggest finfluencers, who has been invited as a guest speaker by premium institutions and associations such as the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), seems to have been selling investment advice to sell his trading courses.
In a call recording that is being widely shared online, Abhishek Kar, who has more than 1.5 million followers across social media channels, not including subscribers to his Telegram channels, can be heard saying that he gave “buy” and “sell” calls, though he used the letters ‘B’ and ‘S’, respectively, to convey the same meaning.
Kar is not a registered advisor, and therefore, giving investment advice is a violation of regulations.
In the call with a veteran trader and “furu buster” Shreyas Bandi, Kar can be heard saying, “I was never writing ‘buy’ or ‘sell’ (in his Telegram channels), only giving ‘B’ or ‘S’, but yes, technically it makes (means) more or less the same.”
Moneycontrol reached out to Kar, but he refused to comment.
Kar has been on the receiving end of an online campaign to get trader-trainers like him to be more accountable to their subscribers/students. Trader-trainers have long been accused of baiting people who are obsessed with the fantasy of living big from trading income when they know otherwise. Therefore, various handles on X have been asking trader-trainers to share their verified profit-and-loss statements as proof of their claims, and as expected, trader-trainers have been resisting this vociferously.
The combo deal
The conversation between Bandi and Kar was done in continuation of that, and it is illuminating because it shows how an illegal business ― of unregistered people selling investment advice ― is feeding the fast-growing “training” business.
Kar says, “I started (the Telegram group) by posting only charts, but then I realised that I was not getting good numbers (of subscribers)… So I thought I will upscale it with observational trades.”
Observational trades are insider-speak for trades that a trader-trainer places in a live market, which are then copied by their channel subscribers. While trader-trainers try to defend this practice by saying this isn’t investment advice but just trades shared for “observation” and learning, Even they know that their subscribers take it as investment advice and copy the trades on their terminal.
Kar says later in the conversation, “Lot (of the subscribers) were enjoying when they were making money… They (subscribers) were blindly copying (his trades).”
He says that he got subscribers for his Telegram channels, which pose as learning channels, in three ways. One was to selectively pick days when his trades were profitable and do an analysis of those trades, and then make a pitch at the end of it to his viewers that if they want “to look around these charts and enjoy like… premium (Telegram group) members, then the link (to join the group) is in our description”.
The premium group is usually used by trader-trainers to refer to Telegram groups with paid access and sell stock advice and trading calls.
In the conversation, he claims that he tied up with Rigi, a content creator platform, to combine his training and “mentoring” programmes and “that got the highest traction”.
He says, “So anybody who takes a mentoring programme… will get access to the training videos… that got the highest traction, (people thought) that humko training bhi mil jayega saath mein sir ka mentoring bhi (mil jaayega) (we will get training and sir’s mentoring too)”.
Why are training and mentoring talked about as different?
Market insiders said that mentoring programme is the industryspeak for programmes where the trader-trainer goes beyond explaining general stock market concepts and instead allows the student-subscriber to follow his/her live trades and copy them if need be, which amounts to investment advice.
Platform partner
On May 29, Rigi said that any influencer who sells content related to the securities market will need to be registered with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) as a research analyst or an investment advisor.
Responding to the queries sent by Moneycontrol, it said in a statement that prior to its May 29 announcement, Kar “utilised a Telegram channel as an extension of his educational courses offered through Rigi. This channel served as a platform for elaborating on the concepts presented in his courses. It’s important to clarify that the content within this Telegram channel is the sole property and responsibility of the creator, Mr. Kar. Rigi’s role is that of a facilitative platform, and we do not exercise control or oversight over the content disseminated therein”.
It added that after the announcement, services related to Kar’s Telegram channel “were restricted to ensure compliance with our updated guidelines aimed at maintaining the integrity of our platform”.
While Rigi did make SEBI registration compulsory, the company does not believe that it falls within its regulatory framework.
Its statement said, “Rigi operates within the IT/ITeS sector. Consequently, our platform is not directly regulated or governed by the SEBI framework. We function primarily as a technological facilitative platform, and our main purpose is to provide tools for content creators to engage and monetise their audience.”