Indel Money Executive Director and CEO Umesh Mohanan recently shared insights on the changing role of gold in India during an episode of Simple Hai!, hosted by Vivek Law. The discussion focused on how gold in India is moving beyond tradition and emotion to become a practical financial tool that supports liquidity and inclusion.
India holds nearly 25,000 tonnes of household gold, much of which remains idle. Mohanan explained that global factors such as US economic trends, geopolitical tensions, central bank policies, and rising global debt now influence gold prices more than seasonal domestic demand. These factors have strengthened gold’s position as a stable asset in uncertain times.
He highlighted that only about 15% of household gold enters the gold loan pledge market, and a majority of this is still handled by unregulated moneylenders. Indel Money aims to change this by expanding regulated gold lending in Tier 2 to Tier 5 cities, helping households access safe credit while improving transparency and local economic activity.
Mohanan also spoke about how gold loans have shifted from being a distress option to a lifestyle finance solution used for education, business needs, agriculture, and home improvements. With longer loan tenures, customer education, and strong governance, Indel Money has built a model focused on trust, repayment discipline, and long-term relationships.
The conversation highlighted how structured gold loans are strengthening financial resilience across India.
In an interview with People Manager, Anoop C. Nair, Head of Human Resources at Indel Money, shared how flexibility in NBFCs must go beyond remote work and become a structured, fair, and governance-driven strategy. He explained that in a regulated gold-loan business, people policies must balance RBI compliance, customer trust, and local cultural realities.
According to Nair, flexibility does not mean relaxed controls. At Indel Money, the core values—ethics, compliance, and customer dignity—remain uniform across India, while the implementation adapts to regional needs. The company follows a “standardise the why and what, localise the how” approach, supported by regional councils and policy audits to maintain accountability.
He highlighted micro-flexibility practices such as rotating Saturdays off, role swaps within clusters, work-from-home options for eligible roles, Recharge Leave, and Family Leave. These initiatives are designed to improve retention in a branch-led NBFC environment.
Nair also emphasised that AI should handle routine administrative tasks, allowing managers to focus on mentoring and customer trust. He stressed that employee feedback is treated as a direct decision-making input, ensuring inclusive policy updates across geographies.
The interview outlines how flexible, measurable, and skills-driven HR practices are strengthening engagement, compliance, and long-term workforce resilience at Indel Money.
Indel Money Executive Director and CEO Umesh Mohanan shared his views on the Union Budget FY27, highlighting its strong focus on foreign investment, financial stability, and long-term economic growth. According to him, the Budget is timely, especially in the context of rupee depreciation, slowing exports, and global trade pressures.
He noted that the government’s efforts to attract foreign capital are visible through tax exemptions for NRIs and Overseas Citizens, along with simplified FEMA rules. The Budget also aims to bring investments from large global corporations by offering customs duty exemptions across key sectors such as aviation components, nuclear power projects, lithium-ion batteries, critical minerals, solar equipment, and electronics manufacturing. These sectors are expected to play a major role in India’s medium-term growth.
On the banking and finance side, Mohanan welcomed the formation of a High-Level Committee on Banking for Viksit Bharat, which is expected to strengthen credit flow to banks, NBFCs, and MSMEs. Treating MSME trade receivables as asset-backed securities is seen as a positive step in easing credit access.
He also highlighted the government’s fiscal discipline, with a reduced fiscal deficit and increased public capital expenditure, which could encourage private investment. The simplified tax regime, support for data centres, bond market reforms, and rationalisation of MAT and STT were described as measures that support compliance, capital markets, and job creation.
