SmartyPig LLC is opening an office in India to sell its social media software to the country's financial services companies.
SmartyPig, which offers its online users a way to share financial goals over social networks, previously offered its service directly to consumers. It began selling its software to banks last month under the name Social Money Systems.
India is "one of the strongest growth markets … in that particular region of the world," says Jon Gaskell, a co-founder SmartyPig.
Mandeep Randhawa, SmartyPig's director of international development, will run the India office. She has been working with the company in Des Moines since 2008 and was SmartyPig's original software developer.
"We have four people in the office right now fully dedicated to social money," says SmartyPig co-founder Mike Ferrari. "To me, it's incredibly exciting. This is a woman that has been with our company from Day One. This is the only way that I'd ever consider putting resources there, because we needed someone who has expertise."
SmartyPig is already talking to several banks in India, Ferrari says. It can also work with social network providers in other countries.
SmartyPig expects to open additional offices in the U.S. and overseas over the next year and a half, according to a press release.
