Sumon Mal

Built my first MCP server. It finds offline businesses using Serper and sends the data to Clay via a webhook. After 6 months of deliberation. And multiple discussions with Anirudh and Romit, where I asked them 10000 questions, I finally built it. Why now? Because I feel it has become important enough that businesses can’t afford to ignore it anymore. Especially automation agencies like us. Rapid adoption from all three big LLM providers Anthropic, OpenAI and Google. Plus platforms like Zapier, Postman, Pipedream have made it possible to (i) easily create servers and/or (ii) integrate it into your workflows for a growing number of use cases everyday. What does my MCP server do? 1) It automatically creates the right queries to search on google using Serper. Selects the cities I want to target based on the states I mention. 2) Allows for batch creation and modularity for the number of pages I want to search. If I am looking for hotels I'll search for 20 pages vs searching for physical therapists where 5 pages should suffice. 3) Stores the API responses into a local folder as a csv file. Each run has a dedicated folder so I can always go back and access the data if I want. 4) Extracts the business details from the JSON responses and creates the final csv I can import to Clay. 5) Then it gets interesting because it also asks me if I'd like to directly send this data to a webhook table in Clay. This means even the manual import step is not necessary. For now at-least it seems like there are a few gaps: 1) Context window is a challenge, with Claude’s desktop client at-least. 2) Tool selection is not perfect. Both these things will drastically improve in the coming months. My assumption also is that using a client like Cursor will make things better, need to test. The big takeaway I had was the benefits of building your own server. I thought earlier, if out of the box MCP servers will become more readily available then users won’t need to spend as much time building, configuring or implementing their own servers. However, it turns out building your own server gives you the advantage of capturing your business logic more reliably. For example even if there are out of the box servers available for Serper (tongue twister much), I wouldn’t be able to achieve some parts of my workflow with it. Like my querying, batching logic, or the ability to transfer data via webhook to Clay. I could have potentially integrated other MCPs or tools to achieve the same but as I mentioned tool selection is currently a problem. There may be even better approaches to solve for a multi step workflow which captures your business context and needs - than just directly building that into your MCP server. Need to explore and build more.

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I've spent years building digital products. But OTT streaming is a different beast. Here's what separates great OTT product managers from the rest: 1. Retention is the only metric that matters. Downloads are vanity. D30 retention tells you the truth. Every feature, every sprint should answer one question: does this make someone come back tomorrow? 2. Personalization isn't a feature — it's the product. Every user who sees the same homepage is a missed opportunity. Rule-based recs get you started. Collaborative filtering gets you further. AI-driven personalization — where the system understands what content is about, not just what users clicked — is where the magic happens. 3. Content strategy is product strategy. I think about content in three buckets: acquisition content (viral, shareable — drives downloads), retention content (series, episodic — builds habit), and gateway content (introduces users to new genres). Tag everything. Measure everything. Feed insights back to editorial. 4. The living room is the next frontier. Mobile gets downloads. CTV gets watch time — 2-3x longer sessions. If your OTT product doesn't have a CTV strategy, you're leaving your best engagement on the table. CTV isn't "app on a bigger screen" — it's 10-foot design, voice search, and lean-back behavior. 5. Free doesn't mean no business model. Build audience with free access, layer in ads thoughtfully, then introduce a premium tier that enhances the experience without gating core content. Monetization should fund the mission, not limit the audience. 6. Vendor management is underrated. Most OTT platforms run on third-party infrastructure. Managing vendors — SLAs, shared roadmaps, avoiding lock-in — is as critical as managing your backlog. Users don't care whose API failed. They care the video didn't play. The OTT market is crowded. But the opportunity for mission-driven, culturally relevant platforms in underserved language markets is massive. The PMs who win will obsess over retention, think in data, and never forget that behind every metric is a person choosing to spend their time with your product. What's the biggest lesson you've learned building streaming products? #OTT #ProductManagement #Streaming #CTV #Retention #DataDriven #AI #Personalization #MediaTech

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Alarm for Digital India — money can vanish with no OTP, no alert, no trace Your bank balance erased in seconds — no OTP prompt, no notification, no audit trail. This isn’t a random bug. It’s a systemic collapse of the protections we depend on. SMS OTPs now deliver comfort, not security. When a SIM or handset is hijacked, the attacker doesn’t need your password — they take your account. Meanwhile regulation and enforcement are trailing real-world attackers. That gap is where citizens pay the price. What must change — and fast: 1) Mandate app-based or hardware MFA for all high-value and sensitive banking flows. 2) Make SIM-port locks (MNP lock) the default on every mobile connection and require auditable, multi-step porting checks. 3) Impose strict penalties and remediation SLAs on telcos and banks for failures that enable account takeover. 4) Launch a national emergency alert: if your phone loses network, treat it like active theft — notify your bank and telco immediately. This is not optional policy talk — it’s a national security and consumer-protection emergency. If you’re a policymaker, regulator, telco or bank leader: act now before the next headline becomes a national crisis. #CyberSecurity #DigitalIndia #SIMSwap #FintechSecurity #RBI #DoT #CERTin #Telecom #DataProtection #CISO #SecurityPolicy #ConsumerProtection #MakeIndiaSafe

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𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗖𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝗧𝗼𝗸𝗲𝗻𝗶𝘀𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗸𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗮 𝗠𝗲𝗿𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗔𝗽𝗽 ? When you choose to save your card, a sequence of events unfolds: 1. Merchant App( Uber, Myntra) ➡️ You can enter your card credentials and choose to save the card. Note your consent has to explicit as per RBI guideliens. 2. Token Requestor( Paytm, Razorpay, PayU) ➡️ The merchant routes your card details to the Token Requestor, a certified party that interfaces with Card Netoworks such as Visa, Master, Rupay etc to initiate the tokenization request. 3. Token Service Provider (TSP) ➡️Usually the Card Networks   • Verify the card with the issuer bank   • Generate a unique CoFT token - a 16- digit number that replaces your real card PAN (Primary Account Number)   • Some networks like Rupay also validate the Authentication ID associated with the original card transaction where you provided consent for saving the card 4. Card Issuer ( HDFC, ICICI) ➡️ Your bank confirms the legitimacy of the request and authorises token generation for the merchant. 5. Token Returned to Merchant’s Token Requestor/ Merchant➡️ The merchant stores only this token — not your real card number. Next time you pay, the merchant app uses this token to initiate the payment. The token requestor fetches a transaction specific cryptogram from card network (think of it like a dynamic CVV), which is sent along with the token to the issuer bank for transaction authorisation. 𝗕𝘂𝘁 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗱𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝘀𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗱? Let’s say you’re doing a 𝗚𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗖𝗵𝗲𝗰𝗸𝗼𝘂𝘁— that is, entering card details afresh every time. 1. In this case, real-time (one-time) tokenization happens behind the scenes, again via the token requestor. 2. A fresh token aka ALT ID is created and used immediately for just that transaction. 3. Similar to saved card flow, token requestor retrieves the transaction specific cryptogram from the network, which is sent along with the ALT token to the issuer bank for transaction authorisation. 4. The token is typically single use, and not stored by the merchant. This real-time token provisioning can be sub-optimal, and some apps don’t support guest checkouts anymore — which is why platforms like Uber or CRED mandate saving your card to simplify the experience. Next up in series - Pull and Push Token Provisioning ! #TokenizationExplained #FintechIndia #DigitalPayments #CoFT #GuestCheckout #RBI #SecureTransactions

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🔐 What every tech organisation in 2025 must get right — Security & Scale. The landscape has shifted. Compliance isn’t an annual checkbox anymore. Scalability isn’t just infra — it’s culture, process, and discipline. If you’re building or scaling a software product company in India, here’s the framework every serious tech org should follow 👇 🛡️ Security & Compliance To earn trust with enterprises, NBFCs and banks — you need structured compliance, not just secure code. Key frameworks: ISO 27001:2022 – security baseline SOC 2 Type II – control & trust validation PCI-DSS v4.0 – for payments DPDP Act 2023 – India’s GDPR RBI Cybersecurity Framework – for fintechs CERT-In 2022 – log retention & breach reporting 💡 Path: ISO → SOC2 → DPDP → RBI ☁️ Cloud Architecture & Scale Security and scale are inseparable. Design for elasticity, multi-tenancy and zero trust. Focus areas: Microservices / Serverless (ECS, EKS, Lambda) OAuth2 + OIDC for secure APIs KMS, Secrets Manager, TLS for encryption Private VPCs, WAF + CloudFront for protection IaC + GitOps for consistency Observability – Prometheus, Grafana, ELK 🧩 Secure SDLC Security is a process, not a patch. SAST / SCA scans (SonarQube, Snyk, Trivy) DAST & VAPT pipelines Secrets mgmt (Vault / AWS SM) Signed builds, RBAC & MFA Continuous posture monitoring (CSPM) 🧭 Data Governance & Observability Traceability is non-negotiable. Data classification & lineage (DataHub) 180-day log retention (CERT-In) SIEM integration (Wazuh, Splunk) Real-time compliance dashboards 👥 People, Process, Policy Even the best stack fails without governance. CISO / DPO / Security Champions Quarterly training & phishing drills Vendor security reviews Incident response & DR playbooks DPDP-aligned data retention 🚀 Scaling with Discipline Tech: Modular microservices, multi-region (India + SG), event-driven (Kafka, SNS/SQS) Org: Platform Engg, Tech Governance Council, SRE for uptime, OKRs linked to reliability 🔮 Emerging Practices AI-driven threat detection Confidential computing (AWS Nitro) Residency-aware multi-cloud Bastionless infra (SSM, Okta) Continuous compliance (OPA, AWS Config) Takeaway: In 2025, the best engineering orgs aren’t just scaling fast — they’re scaling securely, compliantly, and intentionally. #Security #Compliance #Cloud #Fintech #EngineeringLeadership #DevSecOps #CTO #Scalability

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💻 The Silent Threat Beneath the Surface: Wire & Payment Fraud in the Digital Age In today’s digital economy, businesses like ours execute thousands of payments — from vendor wires and payroll deposits to property closings. Yet behind this convenience lies a growing menace: cyber and financial fraud. 🚨 The Rising Tide of Digital Fraud Cybercriminals today are not lone hackers — they’re organized, global, and targeting businesses of every size. Common schemes we’re seeing: Wire Transfer Fraud: Impersonating vendors or executives using lookalike domains to push “urgent” transfers. Check Fraud: Replicating checks and altering payees for online deposit. Phishing & Business Email Compromise (BEC): Deceptive messages from fake vendors, banks, or internal team members. Invoice Tampering: Legitimate invoices intercepted and payment details modified. A/P & A/R Exploits: Automated bots exploiting weak authentication. These attacks don’t just cause financial loss — they damage trust, brand, and credibility. 🛡️ Protecting Your Business At ThoughtWave Group, cybersecurity awareness is a top operational priority across all our verticals — IT consulting, real estate, and software. Here’s how every organization and individual can stay vigilant: 1️⃣ Verify wire instructions — never rely on email alone. 2️⃣ Enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) on banking and email systems. 3️⃣ Use dual approvals for all major payments. 4️⃣ Train employees to recognize phishing and social engineering. 5️⃣ Secure your email domain with DMARC, DKIM & SPF. 6️⃣ Reconcile accounts frequently with automated alerts. 7️⃣ Engage your bank & IT partners for fraud monitoring. 8️⃣ Adopt frameworks like NIST 800-53 or ISO 27001 for structured defense. 🌐 Cybersecurity Is Everyone’s Responsibility Digital transformation makes business faster — and fraudsters faster too. As leaders, we must treat cybersecurity not as an expense but as an investment in trust — protecting our money, our partners, and our reputation. At ThoughtWave Group, we continue to invest in cloud security, AI-driven monitoring, and financial safeguards — but human vigilance remains our strongest defense. Ramesh Thumu Founder & President | ThoughtWave Group of Companies 📩 info@thoughtwavesoft.com

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About a month ago, I had the opportunity to speak at Redis Delhi, alongside some eminent industry leaders — Suman Guha (Tata CLiQ / Tata Digital), Murali Mohan Chakravarthy (Entain), and Rhythm Goyal (Monotype) My session ran for ~25 minutes and focused on how Redis has evolved far beyond its original role as an in-memory cache, and how teams are using it today to solve modern, large-scale problems. We discussed: - Vector search and its role in modern search systems - Bloom filters for efficiently checking user existence at scale (probability at scale!) - Sorted Sets as a practical primitive for rate limiting - Why in-memory systems like Redis became popular for agentic workflows instead of disk storage, aka GPU runtime costs What stood out the most was the audience—an enthusiastic, well-curated mix of experienced engineers and young, fast-growing talent. The questions and discussions made it a genuinely engaging session. It’s always a pleasure learning and collaborating with Jatin Gupta, Omkar Konnur, Justine Hermoso, and Rakhilaa Rajasheker. Thanks to the Redis Delhi team for having me and everyone who joined 🙌

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📈 India’s UPI transaction value surged from ₹1 trillion in FY17 to ₹261 trillion in FY25 That’s ~186 billion transactions in a single year - making up 83.7% of all retail digital payments in India. This isn’t just tech adoption - it’s a financial revolution. And Fintechs have been at the heart of this disruption. After spending 15+ years working across traditional BFSI - Mahindra Finance, Axis Bank, Piramal Finance, HDFC Life - I’ve now taken a leap into the Fintech world, joining Razorpay. And the difference is as real as it is exciting. Traditional BFSI institutions, often seen as slow, are in fact operating under immense pressure - serving massive scale while navigating regulatory frameworks from Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), IRDAI, etc. Their pace may be measured, but the systems they’ve built are stable, reliable, and form the foundation Fintechs can innovate on. Fintechs may move faster, but they’re running on the rails that BFSI laid down. And this is where India’s edge lies: 🔹 Traditional BFSI lays the rails 🔹 Fintech builds the bullet train If India is to lead the world in digital finance, it won’t be through disruption alone - but through collaboration between backbone and speed, between trust and experimentation. I’m excited to bring BFSI depth to the Fintech pace. 👉 Let’s connect: https://lnkd.in/gqwfjq-e

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Go Performance Tuning at Scale: Zepto’s pprof Journey (Part 1) At Zepto, performance isn’t just a priority — it’s an obsession. The best part about making systems more efficient is that it not only boosts speed but also drives real cost savings. In this blog, Akash Agarwal shares our journey of performance tuning — the challenges we tackled, the wins we unlocked, and how the process didn’t just improve our systems, but also shaped the way our engineers think about building scalable, efficient systems. Blog link: https://lnkd.in/gtzdtmGg #ZeptoTechXpress #PerformanceTuning Shivanshu Kumar Tiwari Ashish Bhatt Sumit Gupta Aditya Haridas Menon Harshal Khodifad Abhinav Nimesh Uday Solanki Devansh Chaudhary Devansh Goswami Sumit Ojha Vivek Gover Prashant Giri Balram Vishwakarma Shubham Prashar Anoop Singh Mayank Agarwal Nikhil Mittal

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A bureau score shouldn’t decide who gets a loan and who doesn’t. As Ashok Hariharan shared in Business Standard, traditional underwriting is leaving out millions of new-to-credit Indians. But the truth is — risk itself is far more convoluted than what any single number can represent. At IDfy, we’re seeing this first-hand. Borrowers today are not defined by a single variable but by a web of interconnected signals — cash flows, business dependencies, supplier and customer networks, and behavioural patterns. That’s why we’re building #OneRisk — a framework that combines: Individual, Entity & Asset Risk into a single contextual view Triangulation across multiple data sources — bank statements, GST, ITD, and beyond AI models that understand context, revealing hidden dependencies traditional underwriting often misses This isn’t just about approving more loans — it’s about underwriting smarter, reducing systemic blind spots, and enabling responsible financial inclusion. It’s time we moved from credit history to credit intelligence. If you’re part of a bank or NBFC and facing similar challenges in underwriting or portfolio risk, happy to chat — please feel free to ping me. 🔗 Read the full interview here: [https://lnkd.in/dY3jbia2] IDfy Ashok Hariharan Malcolm Gomes Wriju Ray Paritosh Desai Ashish Sahni Rahul Lakhani Abhijit Joshi Vivek Singh Pratik A. Sidhant Malhotra Eshita Singh Vinay B.

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The cost of convenience is most often privacy. More than money itself. Eg. Identity - Aadhaar - Surveillance in wrong hands Travel - DigiYatra - Private company and surveillance possibilities Health - ABHA - Medical record sharing Financial Data - Account Aggregators - Data leakage and concentration Why do you need centralisation of everything? It all leads to only 2 things - surveillance (in the name of trust) and taxation (to add to the burden of common man). The funny thing is, people often don’t really understand what privacy is. Then fall for digital arrest, cyber scams, surveillance like Pegasus spyware, etc.

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Today, while trying to subscribe to 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝘁𝗚𝗣𝗧 𝗚𝗼, I kept getting a payment failure while using UPI payment option. Tried different vpa's, browsers — the classic “maybe it’s me” debugging cycle. But no, turns out — the world’s most advanced AI product forgot to test payments properly in one of its largest user markets. 😅 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁’𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗶𝘁 𝗵𝗶𝘁 𝗺𝗲 — 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 𝗮 𝗵𝗮𝗹𝗳-𝗯𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗱 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲𝘀. In product development, we obsess over flawless launches. But reality is:  • Every “world-changing” product starts with bugs.  • Every great team has blind spots.  • Every successful launch has a “we’ll fix it in the next sprint” moment. If OpenAI, with all its brilliance, can fumble at something as basic as a payment gateway -it’s okay for us humans (and startups) to miss a few test cases too. So here’s your friendly reminder: Build fast, test well — but don’t beat yourself up when things break. Even the smartest AI in the world has a few human flaws left in it. 😉 #ProductManagement #AI #OpenAI #ChatGPT #StartupLife #HumanAfterAll

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Something unsettling happened recently that stayed with me. Our cook’s young son was hospitalised back home in India. The medical expenses quickly climbed to nearly ₹60,000 per day. What made it harder to process was that he earns in Dirhams and could have comfortably afforded basic health insurance. The real issue was awareness. He had never seriously considered it. I have seen the same pattern earlier in Bangalore with our domestic workers. A single medical emergency was enough to erase savings built over a decade. Not because they were reckless, but because no one ever explained how protection works. Most families in lower-income groups aren’t aware that protection exists at a price they can manage. Government schemes feel distant. Private insurance sounds like a luxury. Yet basic family floater plans from insurers like New India Assurance, National Insurance, or Oriental Insurance can cover ₹3-5 lakh for roughly ₹8,000-12,000 a year. That’s less than a single day’s hospital bill, and often less than what families end up borrowing when crisis strikes. This is not about blame. It is an access and education gap. Many of us are in a position to help bridge it. We understand insurance, paperwork, and basic processes that feel overwhelming to others. What we can do is start conversations. Explain why health insurance matters. Help shortlist a plan that fits their budget. Most importantly, show them how to actually use it when something goes wrong. This is about dignity and preparedness for families we work with, and for the broader community we are all part of. If you employ domestic staff, consider taking one small step this year. Help one family get covered and understand how to use that cover. If you’ve done this, or seen what actually works, I’d genuinely like to learn. What approach made the difference?

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Fraud is evolving at record speed globally. In #India, while bank frauds reduced in FY25, the amount involved went up almost 3X with most cases occurring in #digitalpayments. #UPI payments have already crossed 18 billion in monthly #transactions in India, and it’s no surprise that banks face immense pressure to balance real time speed with real time security. In his latest piece https://lnkd.in/gy2FjCZK , my colleague Mike Cook offers a refreshing perspective: Loyalty data as a behavioral anchor. Redemption and spend patterns can spot anomalies far better than rules-based models alone. Trust as a differentiator. When loyalty ecosystems support fraud prevention, banks deepen relationships while protecting customers. AI + human insight. Merging loyalty intelligence with fraud detection delivers sharper, faster interventions. For India’s #digitalfirst banking market, this is particularly relevant as 1. Customers are digitally active and highly price-sensitive 2. Trust and security are the true differentiators. 3. Loyalty-informed fraud defense could help banks win confidence at scale. Loyalty isn’t just about rewards anymore. It’s about understanding your customers deeply enough to protect them better. To learn more about how behaviour based loyalty optimization grows wallet share and deepens customer relationships, pls visit https://zafin.com/loyalty/ #Banking #Loyalty #FraudPrevention #DigitalTrust #IndiaBanking #Zafin #AIPoweredPlatform #CustomerRelationships #TransactionEnrichment

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💡 RBI’s FREE-AI: India’s Defining Step Toward Responsible Artificial Intelligence 🇮🇳 Artificial Intelligence is no longer a distant concept in financial services. It is now deeply embedded in how Financial organisations detect fraud, assess credit, personalise experiences & make critical decisions in real time. However, as AI grows smarter, one question becomes unavoidable: Can we truly innovate without being responsible? The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has taken a bold and timely step to answer that question with the launch of the Framework for Responsible and Ethical Enablement of Artificial Intelligence (FREE-AI). This marks a major milestone in India’s digital and financial evolution. 🔍 Why the FREE-AI Framework Matters FREE-AI is not designed to slow innovation. In fact, It is designed to build trust within innovation. In an era where algorithms are shaping financial outcomes, trust becomes the ultimate differentiator. RBI’s initiative ensures that AI is developed and deployed in a way that is transparent, fair & accountable. This framework goes beyond compliance. It is about building confidence in every AI-driven decision. 🌟 The Seven Guiding Sutras of FREE-AI 1. Trust as the foundation: Without trust, technology cannot sustain. 2. People first: AI must empower humans, not replace them. 3. Innovation over restraint: Growth must be encouraged, but within ethical boundaries. 4. Fairness and equity: Every decision must be explainable and free from bias. 5. Accountability: Human oversight must remain central to AI governance. 6. Understandable by design: Transparency should be built into every model. 7. Safety, resilience, and sustainability: Financial stability depends on digital integrity. These 7 principles are not mere slogans, they are actually commitments. Together, they create the moral & operational compass for India’s AI-driven financial ecosystem. 🧩 The Six Strategic Pillars That Make It Work FREE-AI rests on 6 foundational pillars that turn its vision into action: 1. Infrastructure: Build secure, indigenous AI ecosystems. 2. Policy: Balance innovation with effective oversight. 3. Capacity: Equip professionals with the right skills for AI governance. 4. Governance: Define clear accountability across the AI lifecycle. 5. Protection: Safeguard privacy, fairness & of course data ethics. 6. Assurance: Validate and audit AI systems independently. Together, these 6 pillars create a “trust-by-design” ecosystem that promotes innovation with responsibility. 🤝 My Final Thought With FREE-AI, India is setting a global example of how innovation and integrity can coexist. How do you see FREE-AI shaping the future of responsible innovation in India’s financial sector? I would love to hear your perspective. #FREEAI #RBI #ResponsibleAI #EthicalAI #Fintech #RegTech #AIinFinance #DigitalIndia #Governance #AIEthics #TrustworthyAI Reserve Bank of India (RBI) nasscom MeitY- nasscom Center of Excellence

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UPI Hits Record 707 Million Daily Transactions – India’s Digital Leap Continues 🚀 India is setting new benchmarks in digital payments, with UPI crossing 707 million daily transactions — a massive milestone showcasing its deep-rooted adoption. What’s next? The future is cardless, phoneless, and frictionless: 🔹 Palm Scanning Payments – Biometric-based, ultra-convenient, and secure. 🔹 Face Recognition Payments – Seamless verification with just a glance. Already being piloted in sectors like retail and transit. 🔹 Delhi Metro’s "Multiple Journey QR Ticket" – A smart, app-based virtual pass gaining serious traction among commuters. These innovations reflect a future where your face or palm could be your wallet — no cards, no phones, no OTPs. #growingindia #digital

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RBI has issued a new authentication framework for digital payments — mandating dynamic two-factor auth and risk-based checks from April 1, 2026 (cross-border CNP rules from Oct 1, 2026). J the App by JustIDT looks at the major step toward harmonising India’s payments security with global standards — and a clear call to issuers, merchants and fintechs to upgrade systems and rethink customer journeys.

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🚀 SEBI’s Fresh Wave: What It Means for SBI Children’s Fund & New Life‑Cycle Funds The regulator just hit the “refresh” button on India’s mutual‑fund landscape, and the ripple effects are already reaching families planning for their kids’ futures. Here’s the low‑down you can share with your network on LinkedIn: Children & Retirement categories discontinued - All existing schemes in the “solution‑oriented” bucket (including SBI Children’s Fund) will stop taking fresh subscriptions and will be merged into comparable regular schemes. SBI Children’s Fund – status - The fund remains active for existing investors, but new money must be routed to the merged vehicle. No new SIPs will be accepted after Feb 26 2026. New “Life Cycle Funds” category - SEBI introduced a goal‑based, glide‑path product that automatically adjusts asset allocation as the fund ages (minimum 5 years, max 30 years). Ideal for long‑term goals like education, marriage, or retirement. Higher exposure to gold & silver - The revamped rulebook now permits larger allocations to precious‑metal ETFs, giving investors a fresh diversification tool. Portfolio‑overlap cap at 50 % - To curb “look‑alike” schemes, SEBI limits the overlap of holdings across categories, pushing fund houses to craft truly distinct products. ### Why This Matters for Parents & Young Investors 1. **Review your SIPs** – If you have an active SIP in the SBI Children’s Fund, you’ll need to re‑route it to the merged scheme. Contact your advisor or the AMC before the cut‑off date. 2. **Explore Life Cycle Funds** – These are built for milestone‑based investing. Their glide‑path design means you don’t have to manually rebalance as your child grows older. 3. **Diversify with metals** – The new gold/silver allowance offers a hedge against inflation—especially useful for long‑term goals. ### Quick Action Checklist - ✅ **Check your portfolio** – Identify any exposure to the discontinued children/retirement buckets. - ✅ **Talk to your AMC** – Ask how your SBI Children’s Fund will be merged and what the new scheme code is. - ✅ **Consider Life Cycle Funds** – Look for offerings from SBI, Axis, HDFC, etc., that match your child’s age horizon. - ✅ **Update your financial plan** – Incorporate the 50 % overlap cap by ensuring your overall MF basket isn’t overly concentrated in the same stocks. --- 💬 **Your turn:** Have you already switched to a Life Cycle Fund, or are you still on the old child‑fund track? Share your experience in the comments – the more we discuss, the smoother the transition for everyone!

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