Talent is a false God

The market is volatile when it comes to people strategy. The disruption and dynamic transformation of businesses, and the temperament of people have constantly evolved into what is now the current work culture. Every day, new concepts keep popping up in the marketplace. What to choose, what to adopt and what to ignore is a hustle by itself. It is a vital sign of health, no doubt, but this uncertainty is leading us to a curious space in many industries. This uncertainty is making many age-old practices redundant and shaking some founding beliefs; one that I foresee would go passé is the legendary performance management practice. There is a lot of noise around the bell curve in many offices and this is the first sign.

Firstly, it is very selfish of an organization to approach performance as the grand deciding factor and to make it a paramount exercise in the system. There is very minimal emphasis on learning, engagement, and other driving factors of an organization. The learning here is not in training measures. It is waking up to a new realm of reality and seeing the unseen factors. In current organizations, engagement is how actively connected employees are at work. Don’t we box these important capabilities of employees and induce a fear of losing out on performance?

Let’s take an example of an employee who had taken the narrow risk of doing something and loses openly. He, despite being good in the first three-quarters of the year, is rated poor due to this loud loss in the fourth quarter. We believe that we have done justice theoretically by restricting his rating. But have we not stopped the other teammates from making innovative choices by sending a wrong signal of ‘No Risk Taking allowed’ to other employees? How willing would be the same employee to take a risk the next time? Is risk not a driving factor? If we blind our people to risk, how can we, as an organization thrive? Is risk-taking not a sign of a competent organization?

If I ask you how much 2+2 is, you will confidently respond with the answer – 4. Now my question is how much is 50 + 60? Yes, you have got the answer as easily as before. How much is 220+230? It now takes you a little longer than the first two attempts, but you’ve got the answer. Your success at the first three attempts would give you earned the confidence and it also shows that you are capable. If the next question is 643 – 569, how much time would you take to get the number? Can this delay be connected to your capability? The reduction of speed can create a ‘blur’ in you, but you eventually will still get the answer. Now you have learnt to deal with the next level of complexity. Should I reward your learning or penalize your blur?

Performance is the hypotenuse side of the triangle with the other two sides being learning and engagement. Performance is the outcome of learning and engagement.  

Talent is, unfortunately, simply seen as the ability to perform in various contexts and momentary successes are paramount to the final verdict of performance. I don’t disregard the context of momentary successes or short wins, but I propose that the current perspective of performance is at fault. The lack of evidence of ‘talent’ in how we measure ‘success’ makes the authenticity of performance metrics outdated.

The deliberation in my mind is whether performance by itself is the end state of achievement or is learning to be institutionalized itself as a journey towards greater realization. Thinking hypothetically, I believe that we always tend to align ourselves to one of the two perpendicular axes viz., either the axis of ‘Talent – Performance’ or the axis of ‘Understanding – Effort’. I’m convinced that there is an end state if we must chase ‘Talent -Performance’. We take it for granted that Performance is paramount.

The challenge is that poor performance has been seen as evidence of a lack of talent, creating a spurious certainty about one’s inability and therefore learning is reduced to a limiting either of ‘successes’ or ‘failure’.

When will a team member of an organization perform optimally? When they are being constantly judged or when there is active engagement and ample space to learn? When we create silos and separate them with initiatives based on performance, we divide the organization into two – one that is judged as good in performance even though there were other people issues, and another who could meet up the expectation irrespective of other contributing factors.  

Don’t we create an unnecessary end state with our own expectations? Revenue and Growth should be the by-product of Engagement and Learning and not the other way round. The Bell Curve method of performance appraisal has served us enough and it is high time we retire it, as right now, it is creating noise in the system. When we categorize more than 40% of the organization as average performers, don’t we ignore and put off a major chunk of the organization? This forced judgment acquits many people who are good at intentions but have failed somehow due to circumstances.

We should courageously create non-judgmental environments and convert shop floors and bays into non-judgmental ecosystems where we don’t judge people for their hits and misses but value them for effort and intentions. This doesn’t create end states and unfold growth in many folds and in all directions. In the ‘Understanding – Effort’ index, my journey is how much I’m on an ‘engagement’ frame of mind with my peers or with the organization. The ‘Understanding -Effort’ axis thus breaks out of this ‘stickiness’ by recognising that learning is a dynamic, never-ending process, joyous and valuable without any gain attached to it.

I know I’m again reinforcing my earlier statement, but I firmly believe that Talent is a false God.  

So, if both supervisor and the person being supervised are on an engaged mind which is set for the growth of an organization, there is learning and exploration. I believe this leads to transformation and to a superior organization that can dominate the market. We must therefore move away from fixed ideas of talent, reinforced by poor performance in assessments, to a more engaging frame of mind. It is important to use space to experiment and discover newer ways to engage with content, competencies, skills, wisdom, and even passion or purpose. In the ‘Talent-Performance’ axis, feedback becomes merely a reinforcement of the static idea of oneself whereas in the ‘Understanding-Effort’ axis, feedback becomes a reflection of a critical ingredient of learning.

When surgeons can operate in the presence of other doctors and lawyers can argue their cases in public view, why should learning or feedback in an organizational set-up seek the security of closed a conversation? In fact, we must move towards a garage concept of public engagement. The performance/competency enhancement automatically happens if one is engaged with each other and with the organisation. In the longer run, engagement leads to greater collaboration for innovation as well.

So, the question in mind is should I keep categorizing people based on their performance (again end state) as Performer, Medium Performer or Non-Performer, and create a biased system based on performance and reserve few privileges to a handful of people? Rather than going beyond this static state of performance and moving towards a fulfilling process of learning and engagement? Can we start identifying people for who are: Actively Engaged, Engaged, Partially Engaged and Not Engaged, and bring them all under an engaging vision and towards a goal worth striving?

One day, my daughter and I finished collecting information about 300 types of insects on her campus and it was a fun-filled, engaging, and learning experience for both of us. Next, we are planning our exploration of the Himalayas – another eventful, engaging and learning experience we can look forward to. By making learning engaging, we are ensuring that it is never-ending, and doesn’t have much to do with her inherent or so-called ‘talent’.

Authored by:

Vinodh Chelambathodi

CHRO

Computer Age Management Services Ltd

A new era of investing by women investors in India

When it comes to fund management, women investors have been on a rise these last few years. CAMS’s latest research finds that when it comes to gender diversity, the Indian fund industry indicates progressive participation of women in Mutual Funds with definitive pointers of growing preference and confidence for investing in Mutual Funds. It is incredible to see the rise in Mutual Fund Investments made by women investors over the last couple of years. This increase in financial independence is marked by the increasing awareness amongst women investors and a growing need to be in control of their own finances.  

Last year, we saw 0.9 million new women investors registering to invest in Mutual Funds, bringing the total up to a whopping 5.5 million in March 2022, from 1.8 million in March 2017. The global pandemic also played a vital role in increasing this number, giving women more time to educate themselves on personal finance.

Financial independence and increasing awareness about financial asset-led wealth creation are narrowing the gender divide in the traditionally male-dominated investment space. It is also really encouraging to note that the trend is not restricted to top-tier cities. This is another indicator of changing the behavior of women toward personal wealth management. Millennial women are currently making up 30% of the base which is another positive indication as they have another 30 years of investing ahead of them.

All the pointers clearly indicate that the women investors’ segment has huge potential, even if we attribute only 50% of the ₹ 1.8 trillion gross inflows in 2021 as investments directly managed by women.

Tracking the gross inflows made by women investors during 2021, the CAMS report on Women Investors points to the growing preference for mutual funds indicates that a total of approximately ₹250 billion was made via SIP investments and ₹1.6 trillion via lumpsum purchases.

Millennials are the most promising group of all the demographics. As we noted earlier, 30% of women investors falling in the age bracket of 20-35 years old and 36% falling in the age bracket of 36-50 years, are most interested in starting their investment journeys. The least investments are made by women over 60 years of age, making only 17% of the total investor base.

Women tend to take their time to explore investment opportunities and stay in their investments longer. They want to understand the planning, investment selection, and management processes to make informed, confident, and stress-free decisions. While a gender gap to a certain degree still exists when it comes to investing, women over the past few years have been hard at work bridging this gap.

As more and more women move towards finding financial freedom and become decision-makers for not only their own consumption but their family’s consumption as well, we’re sure to keep seeing a steady rise in female investors in the coming years. With an increase in awareness and interest in financial planning and wealth creation, we are witnessing a positive shift in investment preferences, goals, behaviors, and mindsets. Women are motivated to save, invest, and take control of their financial journey now more than ever.

Top Reasons you should choose to invest in NPS

While your current financial needs are well taken care of, what about your non-working years, when you retire? Have you made a plan that will give you stress-free income for a reliable retirement? If you haven’t thought about this yet, now is the time! Read on to learn about the National Pension System, your pathway to financially secured retirement years.  

What is the National Pension System?

It is a voluntary retirement scheme, designed and regulated by Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA), to help you build a retirement corpus. Available to all Indian citizens between the age of 18 and 70, one can start investing even at the age of 60 years and reap the benefits at the age of 75.

The National Pension System or NPS is a good investment option for employers, employees, and the self-employed alike. While the latter two have the option to self-invest in the scheme, employers have the option to offer both, NPS and EPF.

Launched on 1st January 2004 by the Central Government, as of the last quarter of 2020-21, over 1.4 crore Indians are contributing to the National Pension System. 

Why should you invest in NPS?

There are innumerable benefits when you look at NPS, as compared to other instruments like a Fixed Deposit (FD), PPF, EPF etc. Here’s looking at the top five reasons to invest in the National Pension System

1. Tax Benefits

The biggest and foremost benefit of investing in NPS is the tax benefits it offers. Whether you’re a salaried or a self-employed individual, the tax benefits you can avail from this one investment are quite attractive.

A. Tax benefit from investment

Deductions from taxable income can be claimed for the employer and employee’s contribution towards the National pension scheme, under Sections 80CCD(1), 80CCD(2), and 80CCD(1B) of the Income Tax Act. 

– 80CCD(1) covers self-contribution and employees can claim up to 10% of their salary (Basic + Dearness Allowance), while self-employed individuals can claim a maximum of 20% of their gross total income, subject to a ceiling limit of ₹1,50,000.

–  Subscribers can also claim an additional individual contribution of ₹50,000 under Section 80CCD (1B)  over and above the ₹1.5 Lakh limit under 80CCD(1).  This benefit is exclusive only for subscriptions made in NPS.

B. Tax benefits at withdrawal

Upon reaching retirement, a subscriber can withdraw 60% of the corpus and has to re-invest the remaining 40% in the annuity. The 60% withdrawal is completely exempt from taxes. The 40% invested in the annuity is also exempt from tax. There would be NIL Capital Gain Tax unlike some of the other tax-saving investment schemes. In case the corpus amount is under ₹5,00,000, the complete amount can be withdrawn tax-free. 

Once you commence receiving a pension from the annuity, the amount is taxable as per the tax slab applicable to your total income.

2. Low-cost and well-regulated investment

As a voluntary retirement scheme, NPS allows you to modify your contributions. The minimum contribution required annually to maintain the account is ₹1,000, making it one of the most convenient investment options. With the option to upgrade your investments as you go, and with no fixed dates to contribute, the NPS is also a flexible investment scheme, allowing you to build your retirement corpus as per your current finances. 

NPS gives you the freedom to choose your asset allotment strategy based on your financial constraints and risk appetite. Your contribution to NPS is divided among multiple asset classes – Equity, Government bonds and securities, corporate debt, and Alternative Investment funds. Subscribers can either choose the percentage of allocation to each fund type, or select Auto Choice and pick their risk preference – Aggressive, Moderate, and Conservative, and have their funds allocated accordingly in different asset classes. The biggest advantage in asset allocation is the option to customize your allocations up to four times a year. Irrespective of the asset allotment you choose, the focus is on ensuring that your wealth grows from the very start of your investment tenure. 

3. Partial Withdrawal

While the National Pension System is a retirement fund, if the need arises, a subscriber can avail partial withdrawal with certain conditions.

– Up to 25% of the subscriber’s contribution amount, up to 3 times in the entire life span. 

– The first withdrawal can only be made after 3 years of opening the account. 

– The withdrawal can however be made only for specific purposes listed by the PFRDA – higher education of children, the marriage of children, construction or purchase of residential property, and treatment of specified diseases. 

4. Superior Returns

The National Pension System does not come with fixed interest, considering that it is market-linked like mutual funds. However, as it is regulated by the PFRDA, pension funds cannot be invested in small-cap companies or foreign companies. PFRDA also restricts the types of debt the fund is invested in. 

Fueled by compounding returns, the best way to ensure a higher retirement corpus is to begin investing at an early age. Even though a part of your contribution gets invested in equity that does not offer guaranteed returns, NPS has traditionally been shown to offer higher returns than other investments like the EPF or PPF. Having been in effect for over a decade, the National Pension System has shown to deliver returns to the tune of 8-10%. Comparatively, a Fixed deposit provides a fixed interest rate of 5-7% and a PPF would give a fixed interest of 7.1%, making the NPS a low-cost investment with higher returns on maturity. As of 2021, the NPS contributions showed an interest rate between 9-12%, making it an extremely attractive investment scheme for people looking to secure their future. 

Summing it up

The benefits to investing in the National Pension System are innumerable, and ones that are hard to overlook. Besides being the perfect path to a reliable and relaxed retirement, NPS is also useful for those looking to save additional taxes regularly. Be it the low-cost and regulated risk involved, or the flexibility to choose your investment, the NPS is one of the best retirement saving tools available for you. Most importantly, as a market-linked returns bring compounding benefits, the best way to make the most out of it is to start contributing early!

Please stay tuned to this space on 17th March 2022 for an important update.

Sources:

Exploring the rising trends of Women Investors in the Indian Mutual Fund Industry

Over the last few years, the Indian Mutual Fund industry has been witness to a rising trend of women investors increasing their participation and the effect that it has had over the entire investment universe. Breaking away from the financial structure of traditional Indian households, there has been an increase in financial education and personal independence that has led to women taking charge of their own or their families’ financial decisions.

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In just the last year, female investors accounted for 25% of the total transactional volume, whereas male investors covered 65% of the volume and corporates made up the remaining 10%. This rise could be attributed to a slowly decreasing gender pay-gap in various fields and increasing employment opportunities across industries. This has led to higher financial awareness among women investors who have smartly channelled their finances into Mutual Funds and various other modes of investments such as gold deposits/purchases, stocks, insurance, and so many other options. There was also an increase in the number of women investors that had been on-boarded in the last year, making up 23% of all new investors. The effect of this increase was also quite evident in the overall trends in investment patterns.

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Women investors also contributed a significant percentage of the gross sales of Mutual Funds, with 25% of all sales coming from women investors with a total of ₹1,17,419 crores. According to the CAMS study, women preference for Non-equity schemes was pronounced with 62% of their investments into debt and liquid schemes. However, the differences didn’t stop at just the asset class that women investors preferred. It is not surprising to see 83% of gross sales for this group in the last year from the Top 30 cities where awareness and financial acumen is higher.

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One other observation from the investment patterns of women investors was in their preference of the transaction options. Of the gross sales made by Women, 86% was made through bullet investments. This points to an untapped opportunity for Mutual fund houses to cross-sell SIP to the segment. The healthy SIP ticket size of ₹3,000 supports the supposition.

The increasing financial independence and growing interest in Mutual Funds are clear factors that are driving this change across the country. With this rise in interest and participation in Mutual Fund investments among female investors in India, there is an increasing need to create newer offerings and options that help grow the market with this segment.

*Data sourced from CAMS report on Women Investors – 2019 representing 69% of Mutual Fund industry.

CAMS study reveals Mutual Funds are getting increasingly popular among millennials

The 1.8 billion-strong global millennial population is quite easily one of the more powerful consumer groups that are in their peak spending and saving bracket. In India alone, there are over 420 million individuals who fall within this group, aged between 25-40. In percentile, they account for up to 36% of the current national workforce, higher than China’s 17% and the USA’s 21%. In the last few years, India’s Mutual Fund industry has focused on getting this group’s attention by offering a range of services and products, making Mutual Funds accessible on digital platforms such as myCAMS and building awareness with popular campaigns such as “Mutual Funds Sahi Hain”. The results are unsurprising.

According to a study conducted by CAMS, 1.7 million of the new Mutual Fund investors on the platform in FY 18-19 were millennials, accounting for 47% of the 3.6 million total new accounts. Of these investors, 60% came from the top 5 cities in the country indicating a higher inclination towards Mutual Funds in the country’s top urban locations.

Millennials, as a generation, are referred to as ‘digital natives’ since they have grown up in a digital-first environment, with computers, smartphones and the Internet. Despite having ready access to information and easy connectivity, millennials have been largely wary with their investment portfolios. The positive performance of the stock market in 2017, amid dropping interest rates on fixed deposits and other savings schemes could be one of the main factors that led to the increase in the popularity of Mutual Funds as an investment option. A host of benefits including safety, stability, tax benefits, and a higher rate of interest as compared to traditional investments, and digital access are some other reasons why millennials are picking mutual funds as their choice of investment.

According to the study, 86% of the new millennial investors opted to be advised by intermediaries such as financial advisors, banks, distributors, and other agencies. However, investors who had intermediaries and those who invested directly did share a common factor. They preferred paper-based Mutual Fund transactions, despite easy access to electronic and digital modes.

There is also a clear demarcation in the preferred transaction type. While over a million millennial investors chose to start their Mutual Fund investment journey by choosing the SIP (Systematic Investment Plan) route, a majority of the rest chose to start with lumpsum purchases, largely in equity schemes. Those who chose the SIP route while starting out had an average ticket size of ₹2,118, while nearly half of those that started with lumpsum purchases started to gravitate towards SIPs at a later point. However, over 23% of the millennials who had started their journey with SIPs ended up cancelling and redeeming their purchases within the first year.

As new investors, millennials in India prefer seeking guidance from intermediaries such as distributors, advisors, and others. This offers a whole new audience for RTAs, AMCs, and intermediaries to bank on. Based on these trends, it’s safe to say that the popularity of Mutual Funds amongst this group is on the rise and with the right approach, they could turn out to be one of the largest group of investors in the coming years. CAMS’s range of solutions and platforms such as myCAMS and digiSIP are uniquely crafted to make the investing experience simpler and safer, no matter which transaction mode the investor prefers.

Visit the CAMS website to explore the entire range now: https://www.camsonline.com/Default.aspx

CAMS FinServ – A Revolution in Financial Data Sharing

Rise of Digital India

India is going through a massive digital transformation in all spheres fast blurring several traditional divides. With the launch of Digital India campaign by the Government and the birth of JAM trinity, namely Jhandan, Aadhar and Mobile a few years back, the impact of digital has been pervasive, touching lives of men and women, young and old, urban and rural.

The digital megatrend is playing out across sectors – retail, financial services, transportation, health care, education, farming, manufacturing forcing businesses and enterprises of all sizes to re-script their business processes to ride the digital wave. The largest service provider, the Government has rapidly adopted digital and we are seeing a transformational change in Government-Citizen interactions.

Introduction of the UPI system has brought game-changing influence to the payment industry. The rapid maturity to the payment ecosystem processing almost a billion payments a month and points to adoption by participating merchants and citizens bringing a permanent change to the path to purchase.

 

Account Aggregators

There is all-round rapid financialization with millions entering the banking sector, insurance, formal credit and a growing preference for financial assets over physical assets.

Financial information of a person is growing with the increased exposure to a wider set of financial products and is held with the respective institution such as Banks, Insurance companies, Mutual Fund, Pension Fund, Housing finance company, etc. Collation and organizing the information for his/her own use and for purposes which seek his financial data remains a time consuming and cumbersome process. The source of information is validated with authorizations and attestations.

Fostering the Digital India drive, RBI has envisioned Account Aggregators platform to eliminate the cumbersome process of collation and sharing of financial data. “Account Aggregation” works on a highly programmable consent given by the customer to share his data with users.

AA, licensed by RBI, works on a mechanism through which a user’s financial information is collated from multiple Financial Information Providers (FIP) and securely sent to the authorized Financial Information User (FIU) with the consent of the customer. The customer has complete control on where he will seek the data from and who he will share it with.

CAMS FinServ, RBI licensed AA will serve 3 stake holders – the customer, Financial Information Providers (FIP), and Financial Information User (FIU) for a seamless fetch and exchange of financial information.

The discovery process in the CAMS FinServ platform will enable the customer to identify his Financial Assets from various FIPs like Banks, Stockbroker, Mutual Funds, Pension Fund, Insurance Providers to name a few. Once he “Discovers” his financial assets, he gets onto the next process of “Consenting to share” with appropriate FIUs. At each step, CAMS FinServ AA notifies the stakeholders on the progress made.

In an ordinary sense, the customer could share his data with FIUs like Lenders. Understandably, the lender would be keen to know the financial health before lending money to the customer.

In another scenario, the customer could offer his data to his Financial Planner/Wealth Advisor/Robo Advisory Firm which can make use of the data and recommend an appropriate Financial Plan for the customer.

 

Benefits of Account Aggregation

AA brings wide-ranging benefits to customers and businesses which rely on accurate financial information. Few of them are:

  • AA provides round the clock access of data to the customer.
  • Reduced time for the customer to obtain his financial information from many FIPs.
  • Consents are highly programmable and therefore easy to manage.
  • Information is sourced from the “Source of Data holders” and no paperwork needed.
  • Reliability of the information received through AA is very high.
  • Loss of bank statements, financial papers, or tampering with any financial records by handlers will be eliminated.
  • Information sharing could be done even every day through CAMS FinServ AA whereas in conventional model this is highly impossible and could be a high-cost activity.
  • Loan approval processes become simple and swift with ready information made available to the lender(s).
  • Dependency on a third-party agency to get the documents from the customer is removed.
  • The overall cost of paperwork will get massively reduced.

A major convenience offered by Account Aggregators is that the users have an option to revoke consent from sharing data permanently or also have an option to “temporarily pause” data sharing. This means that the customer always decides on how long he wants to share data and has the key to stopping it “anytime”.

 

Security:

CAMS FinServ AA is a very secure platform ensuring end-to-end encryption.  The platform can fetch data from multiple FIPs, but is totally “Data blind”, meaning that it cannot store data of any of the financial information of the customer in its system.

CAMS FinServ’s platform acts as the mechanism to enable encrypted data to flow through from the FIPs to the data user. Let’s consider the previous example of availing a loan from a bank – the data shared by the data provider is encrypted and is passed through to the bank (or) the data user via the AA platform. As the data is encrypted end-to-end AA cannot view or download the shared data.

Account Aggregator model is the first kind of financial data access and sharing process with the user’s complete control over the usage of data share to the business entities.

For any further information on the product, services, and features, please write to us at bd@camsfinserv.com. You can visit us at https://www.camsfinserv.com to know more.

Be at peace with your tax filing and enjoy the spring breeze with myCAMS

Come March, the winter chills are starting to fade away and you want to enjoy the onset of spring. But it’s also that time of the year when planning for taxes, choosing and making the right investment becomes important.

You end up postponing this as you have to set aside a few hours to access multiple websites, update your portfolio, take stock of your finances, make some exit decisions and start making tax saving investments, all before this month ends.

Choose a simple, hassle-free platform for all your mutual fund services. Use myCAMS for creating a portfolio view, making transactions, starting SIPs, opening new folios and a variety of other cool features that can be used across 18 Mutual Funds.

Do you plan to do your tax-saving investment later this month? Just use the ‘Schedule transactions’ feature on myCAMS, set the date of the transaction, and be at peace without having to worry about missing out on doing the transaction.

Or are you looking to redeem from another investment to make tax savings investment, but are not clear on the tax and exit implications? Choose the most economical fund using the ‘Redemption guide’ facility which lists out the best-suited fund based on tax impact, exit load and performance.

All this and more, at the click of a button on myCAMS. Just log-in with your registered mail ID and you are set to discover a whole new world of possibilities on one, easy-to-use platform.

Visit: https://mycams.camsonline.com/

Or

Download the myCAMS app now!

Unleashing the Digital Power to Distribution

Café Mutual’s IFA event (CIFA) 2019 was held with the theme ‘Lago Raho IFA Bhai’, aimed at advisors and distributors interested in practical ideas and deep insights to grow their business. The event witnessed a spectacular gathering on February 21st, 2019 at Taj Lands End, Mumbai. A galaxy of speakers comprising India’s best-regarded advisors, experts, MF industry’s most celebrated CIOs, and top CEOs covered a range of interesting and carefully hand-picked topics.

Mr. Anuj Kumar President and CEO of CAMS  delivered a power-packed presentation on the topic “Digital Power to Distribution”- to enunciate why embracing digital technology is not an option anymore and how a wide range of digital initiatives are readily available for distributors.

Digital technology is transforming everything we do and is deeply influencing every walk of our life, be it purchasing products, consuming services and making decisions. The digital megatrend has set its footprints across every industry like financial services, government, retail, transportation, education and more.

Today’s digital platforms are empowering entrepreneurs to accelerate innovation for their business with quick access to markets, finance and marketing using plug and play digital tools. Mr. Anuj Kumar said, “Digital is helping enterprises and entrepreneurs completely reset and redefine service benchmarks”. He also highlighted that data-on-digital influence in financial products is among the highest.

The recent BCG report highlights 70% of urban consumers use digital in purchasing financial products. This trend is predominant in the insurance sector witnessing an end-to-end digital adoption of these services. Additionally, the private banks and their branches in India are fast becoming digital compared to their western counterparts. Bank customers are self-managing their transactions and the branches ensure the deepening customer relationship through the digital route.

Why do Mutual Fund distributors need to exploit digital power?

CAMS data points to 42 lakh new investors added in MFs for 2018 and the lion’s share of it, i.e. 10 lakhs, was done only by IFAs compared to other distribution sources.

Here are a few interesting facts shared by Mr. Anuj Kumar for IFAs:

  • 60% from T 30 cities – investors seeking digital services
  • 60% SIP – needs to be serviced digitally to investors over the next 3-4-year period
  • 50% of new investors are millennials – delivering a digitally powered service is the only way
  • 77% via paper – not a scalable model, has cost implications and severely limits growth

Digital Power from RTAs and AMCs

CAMS, being one of the leading RTAs in the Mutual Fund industry, has leveraged its superior technology and launched innovative products for Distributors

  • An eKYC solution for customer on-boarding
  • Digital transaction submission and statements
  • Mailback services provide a vast array of digital reports and MIS

A sneak-peak on the features upcoming CAMS Distributor platform was also presented:

  • Investor on-boarding with eKYC
  • Seamless transaction initiation
  • Generate investor statements
  • Vast reports and insightful MIS
  • Dashboards to monitor the business trends
  • Revenue tracker

The session was concluded with two key takeaways:

  1. The power of digital is shaping lives and businesses. This is the reality and the new generation is indelibly influenced by this digital power.
  2.  It’s a great time for IFAs to formulate a strategy to enable digital transformation in lockstep with their existing processes.

IFA Galaxy Annual Summit comes with – RE-FRESH – RE-LEARN – RE-BOOT theme

The much awaited 9th edition of the IFA Galaxy Annual Knowledge Summit comes with the latest theme “IFA 2.0 – RE-FRESH.RE-LEARN.RE-BOOT” which is held on 1st and 2nd February 2019 at Hotel Green Park, Vadapalani, Chennai. The event attracted close to 500+ attendees that include pioneers, thought leaders and other stakeholders across the industry.  This year’s event aims to equip IFAs with knowledge and provide a source of encouragement. IFAs, particularly from small cities and towns who don’t have access to industry experts, got an opportunity to network with leading CEOs, CIOs, and top distributors during the event.

The welcome address was delivered by Mr. VK Sudharsan President, IFA Galaxy followed by an inaugural address by Mr. Sankaran Naren, ED and CIO, ICICI Prudential Asset Management Company.
During the keynote address, by Ms. Radhika Gupta, CEO, Edelweiss Asset Management shared many provoking thoughts from her experience and a praiseworthy one being “Timeless advice is behavioral, not technical”, was received with huge applause from the audience.

CAMS was also one of the gold partners participated in IFA Galaxy event this year. The event attendees eagerly visited CAMS stall and learned about the new eKYC solution for distributors offered. CAMS personnel educated attendees about the recently launched eKYC solution and the benefits it offers.

Here are a few energized moments captured at CAMS stall of IFA Galaxy event.

CAMS HFC (3)

The afternoon session of IFA Galaxy lined up an impressive array of eminent speakers who had handpicked on the carefully chosen topics which are very important for IFAs (Independent Financial Advisors) in the new paradigm.

Some interesting sessions of the day were

  • Opportunity Amidst Challenges – Mr. Saugata Chatterjee, Co-Chief Business Officer, Reliance Nippon Asset Management Company
  • Creating a Digital Presence for Bettering Sales – Mr. Kiruba Shankar, CEO, Business Blogging
  • Living through TER cuts and Upfront Ban – Mr. Swarup Mohanty, CEO Mirae Asset AMC
  • Thinking Long Term – Mr. Ajay Tyagi, Exec, VP UTI Asset Management Company

 

The IFA Galaxy team organized a panel discussion on the topic “What an IFA needs to do to RE-FRESH – RE-LEARN – RE-BOOT”. The key takeaway is it insists IFAs relearn business nuances, reboot if necessary and scale up successfully in the coming years to sustain growth.

 

Finally, the power-packed first day at IFA Galaxy ended with an inspiring and motivational speech by Swami Mitranananda.

Coming up, Day 2 with more greater moments. Stay tuned!