On April 13, 2023, Shoonya, a zero broking platform run by Finvasia, experienced a technical glitch that left hundreds of traders suffering losses. Traders had complained of bogus orders leading to massive losses, prompting Finvasia to take immediate action.
After conducting a thorough investigation, Finvasia co-founders Sarvjeet Virk and Tajinder Virk stated that the glitch had impacted a very specific set of customers between 9:15 AM and 9:30 AM on April 13. Customers who logged their first trade between those 15 minutes would have faced issues throughout the day. However, the issue only affected the front end, and trades were executed correctly with the exchanges. The company quickly swung into action and followed standard business as usual protocols. The tech team worked on the issue on a real-time basis and conducted internal audits and mock trading to ensure that the systems worked correctly.
Shoonya is a customer-centric company that understands the confusion that such glitches can create. As a result, the company acknowledged the incident with immediate communication to customers at 9:15 AM.
Finvasia’s user base is 100k strong, and with the understanding that a significant number of customers would have been impacted, the company asked the affected customers to close any position that did not belong to them by April 17. One of the critical measures included sharing a dedicated email ID where customers could share the details of potential losses. The company received just below 700 disputes about the incident, and 12% of these were duplicates. From the remaining disputes, only 77.5% were eligible for compensation, and Finvasia has been able to resolve around 77% of these eligible cases, covering losses of around Rs 3 crore.
However, analyzing disputes is a lengthy ongoing process, where new customers continue to raise disputes. Finvasia has come across certain incidents where the losses being claimed are significantly more than the actual losses. Hence, the review process is stringent and aligned with guidelines.
Despite the incident, most of the customers who raised disputes due to the technical glitch continue to trade with Shoonya. For a few disgruntled customers, Finvasia’s teams are in touch with them and are confident they would not want to leave. Nevertheless, the company will continue to do its best to earn back their trust.
Overall, Finvasia’s response to the incident shows a commitment to customer service and satisfaction. Despite the legal fine print, the company took the business call to cover the losses of all affected customers. While it’s always unfortunate when such incidents occur, the important thing is how the company responds and works to resolve the situation. In this case, Finvasia responded swiftly and transparently, working to restore trust with its customers.
