Business
The exclusive WhatsApp chats where family offices vet deals, plan meetups and sell dinosaur bones
The mobile-messaging application WhatsApp is displayed on an Apple iPhone
Brent Lewin | Bloomberg | Getty Images
For investment firms of the ultra rich, WhatsApp is a one-stop shop for everything from vetting deals to finding the best surgeons.
Sam Nallen Copley, an investment advisor at a London-based family office, runs a 970-person WhatsApp group for single-family offices and has seen it all, from verifying credentials to finding co-investors to selling multimillion-dollar collections of dinosaur bones and Pokémon cards.
“If I need something at any time of day, I can message nearly 1,000 people about a new bitcoin fund or ask who’s the best tax lawyer in Germany,” he said.
Nallen Copley uses WhatsApp to organize meetups for the single-family office network he runs, Family Office Social.
The most valuable benefit is ferreting out scammers pitching deals, which is a common issue for family offices, Nallen Copley said.
“The family office space is the easiest area of finance to be a fake in. If someone turns up and says, ‘Hey, I’m worth a billion dollars in bitcoin,’ it’s very hard to prove one way or another,” he said. “Now the group is sufficiently large and powerful in the sense that we can sense check most things. Has anyone heard of this person? Has anyone ever done a deal with this person? If the answer is no, it will be quite suspicious.”
Family office professionals told Inside Wealth that WhatsApp is convenient for messaging on the go and with people in different time zones. They also appreciate its privacy and exclusivity, as WhatsApp messages are encrypted and you can only message other users with their phone number.
Many of these groups, including Nallen Copley’s, have strict ground rules against pitching products and deals and gatekeep against vendors or brokers. While financial firms like investment banks face steep fines for using WhatsApp, family offices generally aren’t subject to the same regulatory restrictions.
Robin Lauber, a principal of a Swiss family office, is a member of Family Office Socials and its WhatsApp group. Lauber said he prefers WhatsApp over email and LinkedIn, where he is bombarded with unsolicited investment pitches and scams.
“WhatsApp is easy to handle and convenient to manage,” said Infinitas Capital’s Lauber. “To be honest, I don’t read my messages on LinkedIn.”
Erin Harkless Moore, who oversees investments at Melinda Gates’ family office, Pivotal Ventures, said she is part of several groups where investment chiefs share deal flow, get advice on how to use artificial intelligence and ask for hiring help. Recently, members debated how to adjust their portfolio allocations given the exit slowdown and lack of liquidity on their venture capital investments.
“It’s nice to have forums of folks that are in the same industry as you are and doing similar work, just to see what they’re reading, or what they think is interesting,” she said. “I think it makes me a smarter and better investor.”
Using WhatsApp is also somewhat of a necessity for communicating with next-generation family members, according to Joshua Gentine, a family office consultant and third-generation heir to Sargento Foods. At 45, he describes himself as an “email guy,” but said he has a WhatsApp group for a group of six heirs who range from 21 to 35.
“We got to meet them there,” he said. “Emailing, especially with those … 35 and under, is really challenging.”
There are platforms designed for family offices and ultra high net worth individuals, such as Trusted Family and Forge, that enable messaging. But WhatsApp is used far more widely, with more than 3 billion monthly active users worldwide.
Michael Cole, managing partner of R360, an investment community for centimillionaires, said R360 has its own app primarily for events but that members still default to WhatsApp. It has WhatsApp groups for different affinity groups, like private aviation and outdoor adventures. The health, longevity and wellness group recently used WhatsApp to motivate one another during a fasting challenge.
Even though WhatsApp is owned by Meta, many members perceive WhatsApp to be more private than the platforms targeting them, Cole said.
“People like WhatsApp because there’s nobody — what I would call ‘big brother’ or the perception of a big brother — overseeing their communication,” Cole said. “They can establish a group any way they want.”
Cybersecurity experts warn that relying on WhatsApp comes with serious risks. Tony Gebely, of Annapurna Cybersecurity, said it’s more secure than texting (better known as SMS), especially between different devices like Androids and iPhones. However, he said, WhatsApp, which is meant for consumers, doesn’t have features like saving messages in the case of an investigation or lawsuit the way Microsoft Teams does.
And while the messages are encrypted, Meta can track the metadata, such as who you message and how frequently, he said.
WhatsApp messages are also stored on your device, which poses a security risk if it is stolen or lost. This also means that family offices can’t stop fired employees from accessing old messages, said Jordan Arnold of Jetty Partners. Arnold said he has seen spurned employees threaten their former employers with leaking sensitive messages.
Rather than trying to convince family offices to quit WhatsApp altogether, Gebely encourages clients to only use WhatsApp for nonsensitive conversations such as letting someone know they are running late for a meeting but not for asking for a wire transfer approval.
“They’re not a regulated entity, so they can do whatever they want,” he said. “People are going to use it for networking and seemingly innocuous activities, and I don’t think that we’re ever going to change that. But when it comes to business and running a family office, you can’t be using it on your day to day.”
Business
New Income Tax Act 2025 to come into effect from April 1, key reliefs announced in Budget 2026
New Delhi: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday said that the Income Tax Act 2025 will come into effect from April 1, 2026, and the I-T forms have been redesigned such that ordinary citizens can comply without difficulty for ease of living.
The new measures include exemption on insurance interest awards, nil deduction certificates for small taxpayers, and extension of the ITR filing deadline for non-audit cases to August 31.
Individuals with ITR 1 and ITR 2 will continue to file I-T returns till July 31.
“In July 2024, I announced a comprehensive review of the Income Tax Act 1961. This was completed in record time, and the Income Tax Act 2025 will come into effect from April 1, 2026. The forms have been redesigned such that ordinary citizens can comply without difficulty, for) ease of living,” she said while presenting the Budget 2026-27
In a move that directly eases cash-flow pressure on individuals making overseas payments, the Union Budget announced lower tax collection at source across key categories.
“I propose to reduce the TCS rate on the sale of overseas tour programme packages from the current 5 per cent and 20 per cent to 2 per cent without any stipulation of amount. I propose to reduce the TCS rate for pursuing education and for medical purposes from 5 per cent to 2 per cent,” said Sitharaman.
She clarified withholding on services, adding that “supply of manpower services is proposed to be specifically brought within the ambit of payment contractors for the purpose of TDS to avoid ambiguity”.
“Thus, TDS on these services will be at the rate of either 1 per cent or 2 per cent only,” she mentioned during her Budget speech.
The Budget also proposes a tax holiday for foreign cloud companies using data centres in India till 2047.
Business
Budget 2026 Live Updates: TCS On Overseas Tour Packages Slashed To 2%; TDS On Education LRS Eased
Union Budget 2026 Live Updates: Union Budget 2026 Live Updates: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is presenting the Union Budget 2026-27 in Parliament, her record ninth budget speech. During her Budget Speech, the FM will detail budgetary allocations and revenue projections for the upcoming financial year 2026-27. Sitharaman is notably dressed in a Kanjeevaram Silk saree, a nod to the traditional weaving sector in poll-bound Tamil Nadu.
The budget comes at a time when there is geopolitical turmoil, economic volatility and trade war. Different sectors are looking to get some support with new measures and relaxations ahead of the budget, especially export-oriented industries, which have borne the brunt of the higher US tariffs being imposed last year by the Trump administration.
On January 29, 2026, Sitharaman tabled the Economic Survey 2025-26, a comprehensive snapshot of the country’s macro-economic situation, in Parliament, setting the stage for the budget and showing the government’s roadmap. The survey projected that India’s economy is expected to grow 6.8%-7.2% in FY27, underscoring resilience even as global economic uncertainty persists.
Budget 2026 Expectations
Expectations across key sectors are taking shape as stakeholders look to the Budget for support that sustains growth, strengthens jobs and eases financial pressures:
Taxpayers & Households: Many taxpayers want practical improvements to the income tax structure that preserve simplicity while supporting long-term financial planning — including broader deductions for home loan interest and diversified retirement savings options.
New Tax Regime vs Old Tax Regime | New Income Tax Rules | Income Tax 2026
Businesses & Industry: With industrial output and investment showing resilience, firms are looking for policies that bolster capital formation, ease compliance, and expand infrastructure spending — especially in manufacturing and technology-driven sectors that promise jobs and exports.
Startups & Innovation: The startup ecosystem expects incentives around employee stock options and capital access, along with regulatory tweaks that encourage risk capital and talent retention without increasing compliance burdens.
Also See: Stock Market Updates Today
The Budget speech will be broadcast live here and on all other news channels. You can also catch all the updates about Budget 2026 on News18.com. News18 will provide detailed live blog updates on the Budget speech, and political, industry, and market reactions.
We are providing a full, detailed coverage of the union budget 2026 here, with a lot of insights, experts’ views and analyses. Stay tuned with us to get latest updates.
Also Read: Budget 2026 Live Streaming
Here are the Live Updates of Union Budget 2026:
New Delhi: The Cabinet on Sunday approved the Union Budget 2026-27 during a meeting in Parliament chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. A meeting of the Union Cabinet was held at Sansad Bhawan at 10 a.m., and after the Cabinet’s approval, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman proceeded to Parliament to present the Budget.
Earlier, FM Sitharaman met President Droupadi Murmu and offered her a copy of the digital budget. The President also offered ‘dahi-cheeni’ (curd and sugar) to Sitharaman when she arrived at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. The Finance Minister was seen carrying her trademark ‘bahi-khata’, a tablet wrapped in a red-coloured cloth bearing a golden-coloured national emblem on it.
Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary, Chief Economic Advisor Dr V. Anantha Nageswaran, Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) Chairman Ravi Agrawal and other officials were seen accompanying the Finance Minister. Sitharaman was set to present her ninth consecutive Union Budget in the Lok Sabha. In 2021, she switched to using a digital tablet to carry the Budget papers, further promoting a modern and eco-friendly approach.
The ‘bahi-khata’ is a red pouch that holds the digital tablet containing the Budget documents. This year, Sitharaman opted for a deep maroon Kanjeevaram saree from Tamil Nadu. The saree featured a deep maroon base with a contrasting border and subtle gold detailing, paired with a yellow blouse.
The Budget is likely to strike a deft balance of sustaining growth momentum and maintaining fiscal consolidation. It also needs to address near-term challenges emanating from unprecedented geopolitical flux, said economists. According to economists, the budget is likely to focus more on capital expenditure, especially in sectors deemed to be strategically important owing to prevailing geopolitical compulsions.
While the FY26 Budget was more tilted towards stimulating middle-class consumption with tax reliefs, the FY27 Budget’s approach to stimulating consumption will be selective, they added.
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