Bangalore : HDFC Securities today announced the roll-out of ‘Kya Aap Taiyyar Ho?’, its nationwide CSR effort under its flagship #KnowYourMoney initiative, an all-inclusive awareness drive committed towards building the financial literacy and resilience of India. In tackling the mounting menace posed by investment fraudsters, the campaign combines powerful storytelling, online innovation, and community outreach to make financial literacy accessible, engaging, and intensely personal.

Directed by award-winning Nitesh Tiwari, the mastermind behind Dangal and Chhichhore as well as the upcoming Ramayana starring Yash and Ranbir Kapoor, the campaign highlights the methods used by scammers through an engaging ‘Fraudster Family’, an exaggerated but realistic world that reflects actual deception. Portrayed by Manoj Pahwa, Bhuvan Arora, Sapna Sand, Shrikant Verma, Nutan Surya, Simran Shah, and Siddhant, the narrative employs humour and recognizability in converting awareness into action. Through each film, the inner mechanisms behind the latest frauds, from emotional manipulation to online trickery, are revealed, prompting reflection and caution in the audience.

“When you see families losing their hard-earned savings to fraud, you realize awareness isn’t optional. It’s essential,” says Nitesh Tiwari. “Through our association with HDFC Securities’ #KnowYourMoney initiative, we’re using storytelling to help India escape the traps of investment frauds. This campaign is about empowering every investor to stay informed, stay ahead of the curve, and protect what they’ve built. Because in a fast-moving financial world, knowledge is the real safety net.”

The first two films in the five-part miniseries can be viewed here and here.

The campaign extends across online and offline mediums, showcasing the potential for financial literacy to be informative as well as essential. Since its inception in the first half of 2025, #KnowYourMoney has evolved to be one of the largest hybrid financial literacy initiatives in India. The project covers major subjects such as banking, budgeting, retirement planning, and how to stay safe from frauds, combining online tools with ground-level learning sessions with the aim of empowering people from all walks of society.

In its first nine months in operation, the #KnowYourMoney initiative has reached approximately 1.1 crore Indians each week with its multi-lingual content, community programs, and learning media. Its learning modules, available in 13 Indian languages, comprise an innovative gamified curriculum for micro-learning so that the users can get basic financial literacy at their own pace.

Puneeth Bekal, EVP & CMO, HDFC Securities, agrees: “Investment fraud has evolved in scale and sophistication, and the only sustainable defense is awareness. Through #KnowYourMoney and ‘Kya Aap Taiyyar Ho?’, we are creating a movement that enables Indians not only to secure their money but also to take well-informed financial decisions. The campaign leverages the power of entertainment in sparking learning and curiosity and putting the power of prevention in people’s own hands. Staying true to our 25-year-legacy, this is an ongoing effort to guide our investors to invest responsibly. This is not just a campaign; it’s a movement toward economic security.”

HDFC Securities has also partnered with three specialist entities, Wagons Learning Ltd., EmpowHer India, and Access Livelihoods Foundation, so that the initiative’s coverage extends across urban and rural India. Altogether, the partnerships have pushed interventions in digital and physical classrooms, from primary school students to collegegoers, and through community outreach in the states of Maharashtra, Kerala, Telangana, and Karnataka. Thousands of handbooks and learning kits have been distributed, over a thousand teachers have been trained, and students and rural communities are consistently attending structured sessions in financial literacy. In the coming months, the program aims to reach 14,000 colleges across 22 states through the Bharat Skills portal of the Directorate General of Training (DGT), as well as through focused trainings and engagement with audiences like gig workers, women entrepreneurs, domestic workers, and more.

Complementing such systemic programs, the creative extensions of the campaign stand apart for their originality and cultural sensibility. The comic strip series ‘Bear and Bull’, available in dailies run nationally across four languages (English, Hindi, Kannada, and Gujarati) humorously summarizes tough money concepts in daily doses. The campaign also includes a podcast series powered by the country’s best finance journalists and influencers, who discuss real examples of frauds and offer actionable advice for investors.

Offline action takes the form of entertaining and informative activities such as the proposed ‘Scam or Not’ challenge game, community contests in metros and colleges, an upcoming collectible card game called the ‘Investment Heist’, and the soon-to-be-published ‘Fraudster’s Dossier’, an in-depth primer that allows citizens to recognize signs of scam and secure their investments.

Ayyappan Raj, Cofounder of The Script Room, who worked on the campaign, adds, “The concept of scamming seems like it was created by some computers and machines on the Internet. It’s not, it’s just a bunch of people who do it. The campaign idea was to humanize investment scams, making everyone relate to it and understand it, and therefore be aware of it in everyday life. In terms of treatment, we stayed away from the trending, quirky zone of advertising and chose a classic form of storytelling. Big thanks to Nitesh Tiwari and the team at EarthSky for making these scripts land so brilliantly and charmingly. Big hugs to the team at HDFC Securities for being great clients and collaborators.”

The campaign also honours regular citizens who have managed to identify and deter frauds and employs their actual tales as examples that awareness is possible, and caution can be acquired. In these accounts, ‘Kya Aap Taiyyar Ho?’ reiterates an influential message: everybody can be a fighter against frauds regardless of their background and experience in matters related to finances.

Through this endeavour, HDFC Securities upholds its 25-year tradition of enabling Indians through affordable financial learning, innovation, and credibility. In intertwining cinematic narrative, attributable effect, and ground-level implementation, ‘Kya Aap Taiyyar Ho?’ stands for something bigger than a campaign: it stands for a national call to action, teamwork, and confidence. Continuing the Educate, Empower, and Elevate mission of #KnowYourMoney, the message is simple: financial literacy isn’t merely information, it’s security – and every citizen deserves it.