MoneyLife magazine is launching a financial value-added research and information services and community of savers called MoneyLife Smart Savers to provide consumers with information on choosing different financial services like insurance, mutual funds, banking among others. Speaking to Medianama, Debashis Basu, Co-Founder, MoneyLife said that while so far MoneyLife has only been writing about financial services, and with Smart Savers, they intend to facilitate the purchase of financial services as well. Smart Savers is likely to be launched in a month or so as a combination of online and offline services through a separate company. Consumers can subscribe to MoneyLife Smart Savers by paying an annual fee of around Rs. 2000. Apart from access to financial information services, this subscription fee would entitle subscribers to MoneyLife magazine's offline and online editions, membership to Money Life Foundation, their non-profit entity, newsletter subscription, video resources, among others. What's interesting is that the MoneyLife magazine's digital edition recently went behind a pay wall. Now, only magazine subscribers can access the digital edition. One of the main reasons for the magazine to go behind a pay wall is the launch of Smart Savers, adds Basu: since they would have to give the magazine's digital access to subscribers of Smart Savers, they have decided to keep the magazine behind a pay wall for the others as well. It seems that MoneyLife began this shift with the introduction of their online and offline insurance helpline that provides insurance related do's & don'ts as free and paid service to customers. Their website…
