Zibika.com launches chat-based stock search service

Insurance and personal finance comparison portal Zibika.com has launched Zibika Stockbot, a chat-based stock search service that allows users to check the current Sensex (Sensitive Index at Bombay Stock Exchange) and Nifty (National Stock Exchange Fifty) levels as well as various stock prices on BSE and NSE through Google Talk.

To use the service, one first needs to add market.zibika@gmail.com as a friend in GTalk and type ‘Sensex’ or ‘Nifty’ as a chat message. Individual stock prices of companies on BSE and NSE can be fetched by typing BSE or NSE followed by the company name.

“For many retail traders, it is a painful task to keep visiting a website and refresh a page multiple times to check for stock prices. The Zibika Stockbot is a first-of-its-kind tool that allows users to check for stock prices on BSE and NSE through their Google Talk messenger,” Kaushik Mukherjee, director, Zibika Infotech, has told AlooTechie.

Zibika.com has partnered with Switzerland-based VIG (India) Insurance Brokers to close insurance sales through the portal. “Apart from this, we have also tied up with some of the leading brands such as ICICI Lombard, ICICI Prudential, Future Generali and Reliance Life through which interested buyers can get the product of their choice,” informed Mukherjee.

According to Mukherjee, the common pain-points in applying for insurance, loans and cards is the many pages of fine print that is almost always impossible to make sense of. Zibika makes it easy for users to understand the pros and cons of every insurance policy, loan product or credit card. “At present, the portal hosts information of over 600 insurance policies and loans products. Apart from this, the portal also contains rich data on over 300 cards and 2,000 banking products,” he added.

Zibika.com yet doesn’t allow users to buy insurance online. “Interested buyers are encouraged to leave their lead on our system and the process is closed offline. Shortly, we will introduce systems by which a user will be able to generate an e-policy by directly paying for it on our portal,” said Mukherjee.

Mumbai-based Zibika.com was launched in April 2009 and currently is a 10-member team. The company also has a branch office in Hyderabad. Zibika earns its revenues through a share of the broking commission from closed sales and marketing commissions for successful referrals to the alliances.

Zibika raised about $250,000 in angel funding prior to its launch and is presently in discussions to raise additional funding to scale up its operations and product features. Zibika.com claims that the portal crossed 100,000 page views in August 2009 and the number of its daily visits has grown by over 200 per cent in the last two months.