According to CFL which has a turnover of over Rs 100 core, its online operations would break even in the middle of third year since its launch. The centrumdirect would earn a revenue of Rs 9.08 crore in the first year of operations and it would later increase to Rs 16.81 crore after first year, Rs 24.52 crore after second year and Rs 34.03 crore after third year.

The CFL has assumed its key revenue inflows from brokerage in capital markets, syndication of other financial services and distribution of retail products. Its key expenditure heads would be manpower, marketing and promotion and Web development and maintenance.

"We plan to use the Internet as a medium to widen our reach in the market and launch some products that will be new to the market," the chief executive officer of centrumdirect.com Mr Sanjay Bhasin told the eFe. He informed that the centrumdirect would create an exchange for Inter Corporate Deposit placements and also an asset financing exchange.

Mr Bhasin who is a former treasury head of Standard Chartered Bank said that centrumdirect would use the Internet as a tool to market and communicate the distribution network and infrastructure already in place. "The company believes that there will be dual benefits of the new age online business and a positive cash flow from the brick and mortar activities," he addedIn the course of a year centrumdirect is envisioned to drive CFL's business in the retail finance products market also. Commenting on the crowded space in the personal finance field, Mr Bhasin said that while most existing portals are equity-centric, centrumdirect would offer a wider range of products as a financial services aggregator to ensure that all customer needs are fulfilled at one site. "The underlying concept of centrumdirect.com is to give the customer a financial super-store experience," he opined.

Mr Bhasin said that the centrumdirect would target and deliver its products to the existing CFL customers, the "Net literate" corporate customers and the "want to be on the Net" customers. Simultaneously, it would focus on the retail customers comprising the Net savvy citizens, the "research before you buy" customers, the nostalgic Non Resident Indians and the new age traders."We see a large number of our customers coming from the existing users of CFL's services, from hitherto untapped towns and from the large number of new converts to the Internet," Mr Bhasin said and added that the centrumdirect's business model goes well beyond the B2B and B2C paradigms of the new economy.