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.

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.

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.

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 21^st, 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 9^th 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 1^st and 2^nd 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.

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!

GoCORP wins coveted award at Drivers of Digital Summit 2018

The recent DoD summit held at Mumbai attracted the participation of leading brands in banking, insurance, mutual funds, broking and payments.  The awards recognize brands which leverage technology to drive digital adoption to propel growth, inclusion and transformational customer experience.

CAMS GoCORP won the award for Use of Digital Media in the Mutual Fund category.

This award was received on behalf of CAMS by Mr. Tilak Raj Khanna, General Manager, Digital, Analytics & Intermediary Service and Mr. Prabal Nag, Senior Vice President, Business Development CAMS.

Pain points of Corporates in MF Investing
In the traditional model, MF transaction preparation and execution is handled directly by the treasury and finance departments of corporate houses. Multiple transaction forms and cheques preparation, signatures from multiple authorized signatories are time and coordination intensive tasks. Inherent problems with the paper-based transactions were

• The market lacked an aggregator platform. Corporates had to deal with multiple fund houses for transaction confirmation & Statement of Account
• Manual paper work prone to errors that can have financial consequences
• Short time-window for liquid scheme investments, especially when multiple authorized signatories are involved. Multiple complexities in case of group companies.
• Multiple follow-ups required to reconcile transactions

CAMS GoCORP Solution for Corporates
CAMS envisaged that leveraging the “digital” mega trend will bring the next big game changing transformation to corporate houses investing in Mutual Funds. It launched GoCORP in 2015, an aggregator platform for corporate investors to execute paper-less transactions across multiple mutual funds though a single platform.

GoCORP brings rich features and superior processing, one view of Mutual Fund investments and much more for Corporates

Access and Execution Control

• One login to access 17 participating mutual funds
• Maker, authorizer — Customizations for authorized signatory hierarchies
• Parent and Group company’s signatory customizations
• SMS/email alerts for maker and authorizer to verify and authorize transactions
• Electronic time stamping at server on receipt of transactions

Transaction Features

• Additional purchase, redemption and switch
• Purchase in existing schemes and new schemes
• Corporate can transact in direct plan and regular/intermediated plan of mutual funds
• Investor has option to invest either directly or via brokers
• Payment modes: RTGS/Online Corporate Banking
• Corporate can customize their frequent/repetitive investments as ‘Favorites’ and submit subsequent transactions with mere-2-edits
• Facility to cancel submitted transaction
• Corporate can schedule redemption transactions
• Same-day Purchase & Redemption transaction can be executed
• Bulk upload of transaction (Excel) file

Reports & Transaction Tracker

• Consolidated Portfolio Valuation (with % allocation in Mutual Funds/Asset Class)
• Audit Report to fetch transaction status based on date range
• Capital Gain Statement with appreciation/loss, XiRR
• Single window view of submitted transaction details, with selection across group co./funds/folios
• Generate Fund house Account Statement – period specific
• Quick dashboard enables to identify if any transaction pending to be authorized

Impact of GoCORP

GoCORP portal is secure and does not store any information in the local system. All information provided travel over secure mode to the server with a high level of encryption to ensure transaction safety. Apart from this, other best practices have been taken to protect the interest of Corporate Investors.

Benefits to Corporate Investors:

• Zero paper work
• Elimination of errors while preparing paper-based orders
• Anytime, anywhere approval of transactions by authorised signatories – physical presence requirement eliminated
• Electronic management of orders facilitating reconciliation of monies
• Enhanced Portfolio management leading to improved treasury management

The platform user base has doubled in the past 12 months to touch 2400 registered corporate houses which is nearly 50% of the corporates who currently invest in Mutual Funds. It has seen staggering increase in transactions recording about Rs.2.5 trillion gross transaction value and Rs.1.25 trillion purchase value every month, unmatched by any other platform/ website / stock exchanges which serve the Mutual Fund industry.

CAMS Celebrates 5-Year Relationship with Hero FinCorp with a Road Safety Event

10-second takeaway: CAMS takes immense pride in building longstanding client relationships and work with Hero FinCorp over the last five years is one such example. To celebrate this significant milestone, CAMS conducted an event to build awareness around road safety.

Road accidents are a significant problem in Tamil Nadu. In fact, according to the National Report on Road Accidents in India (2016), over 14.9% of all accidents in India take place in the state. Tamil Nadu also reported the maximum number of persons injured in road accidents, accounting for 16.6% of the cases nationally. Nationally, two-wheelers seem to be the most vulnerable segment, constituting 34.8% of all road accidents. In 2016 alone, over 10,000 two-wheeler riders met with fatal accidents because they were not wearing their helmet. The solution to this problem is to increase adoption of safety measures, and the first step towards achieving this is building awareness.

To drive the adoption of these safety practices, we collaborated with Hero FinCorp to create an awareness drive. “As a retail financing service provider, Hero FinCorp has been an integral part of India’s growing presence in the global two-wheeler market. At CAMS, we take great pleasure in being the technology backbone supporting HFC’s growth for the last five years. We are honored to commemorate this occasion with a cause that addresses a problem as important as road safety and are glad that the event was a great success,” said, Abhishek Mishra , SVP – Banks / NBFCs, CAMS.

The event kicked off at MRC Nagar with CAMS employees carrying placards that underlined the importance of road safety.  In an act of positive reinforcement, the volunteers then handed out 50 bike helmets to commuters riding without them.

An internal version of this event saw 7000 employees in attendance, further spreading the message of responsibility and safety on the road. While this was a small step in the right direction, we believe that a concerted effort can drive longstanding change in the journey to a safer India.

Investing in SIPs has just gotten a whole lot easier with digiSIP

“Mutual funds Sahi Hai”

If you are reading this post, it’s unlikely that you haven’t heard this line before. The campaign, which has added 40 lakh new investors over the past year ending June 2018, suggests that Mutual Funds are being considered as the right choice of instrument by first-time investors. SIPs being the preferred route for individual investors saw exponential growth in the last 12 months with over 1.25 crore new registrations contributed by both seasoned investors and new investors. While awareness has been a catalyst for this growth, the importance of the quality of investor experience cannot be discounted. First-time investors and even existing investors continue to grapple with one question – how to invest? Ease of access, speed and simplicity are the unstated demands that all investors make.

Enter digiSIP

Our latest digital innovation, digiSIP, transforms the SIP investment process for both investors and distributors. digiSIP’s range of features helps existing and new investors start an SIP with ease. However, that’s not all. Every aspect of digiSIP has been built with a focus on the end-user, ensuring that the product isn’t just efficient and easy to use, but also addresses real problems.

For instance, we have found that the fear of complexity and poor experience are two of the main factors that keep first-time investors from getting their toes wet. Starting an SIP takes about 30 business days via traditional channels.  Also, when you’re looking to build a diversified portfolio, it can be frustrating and cumbersome to go through inefficient paperwork, time after time. digiSIP transforms that experience through best-in-class tech paired with a user experience designed to be intuitive and seamless. Here is a look at some of the platform’s features.

Quick and Paperless way to start an SIP with CAMS serviced Funds

digiSIP has given the SIP registration process a complete digital overhaul. Now investors can start an SIP faster than before—in just seven business days, with absolutely no paperwork. The digital interface also helps investors and distributors track the progress of their SIP registrations anytime they want, anywhere they want.   All this and more across 15 Mutual Funds serviced by CAMS.

Hassle-free registration

New investors have the added benefit of completing their e-KYC online to ensure a hassle-free SIP registration process. Once an investor is KYC compliant, they can start an SIP online without submitting their signature. Existing investors can set up SIPs in just a few clicks with the help of digiSIP’s powerful pre-filled forms. Click-based data entry eliminates the need to fill in the same information across multiple forms and also speeds up the process and eliminates the chances of data input errors. Investors can also choose to set up multiple SIPs simultaneously helping them save time.

Ease of payment with eMandate

CAMS eMandate helps investors and distributors start an SIP faster than before. It is aimed at helping investors seamlessly register mandates online. The same mandate can then be used as a mode of payment across multiple SIPs or to make lump-sum purchases. You can register an eMandate in just about 2-3 days, unlike paper-based mandate forms which can take up to 10-20 days for registration. Valid for both existing and new SIPs, a single eMandate allows investors to invest in multiple SIPs and stagger their investments across the entire month.

digiSIP for distributors

digiSIP helps distributors simplify their sales processes and improve operational efficiency with the help of a built-for-purpose workflow, allowing distributors to focus on what they do best – building their business and enhancing their customers’ investing experiences. The platform’s click-based data-entry helps distributors save time by enabling the setting up of SIPs for their investors in just seven business days. Distributors can also make any necessary changes online with only a few clicks.

Technology is integral to progress, but at CAMS we believe it’s equally important to package and deliver innovation in a manner that improves the user experience. We see it as our responsibility to guide the progress of the industry and continue our heritage of moving the Indian financial ecosystem forward. digiSIP is a significant step in that direction.

So, don’t wait to get started. Visit www.camsonline.com now to learn more about digiSIP. It’s time to give yourself the investment experience you deserve. With digiSIP, mutual funds and SIPs ‘aur bhi sahi hai.’

Discussing the need for IFAs to go from “Good to Great” at IFA Galaxy’s 8th Annual Summit

Individual Financial Advisors or IFAs are professionals who offer advice on financial matters to their clients and recommend suitable financial products from the entire market. They offer their services on various matters that include investment, retirement planning, insurance, mortgages and other related financial activities. Srikanth Tanikella, Senior VP- Mutual Fund Operations, CAMS, recently took part in a panel discussion in the 8^th annual edition of the IFA Galaxy Summit held at Hotel Green Park, Chennai. This panel discussion was held on the 10^th of February 2018 and the topic, in particular, was “Good is the enemy of the great”. This focused largely on the need for IFAs to adopt existing technology to keep up with the pace of growth of the sector and achieve their targets faster. The key participants of this panel discussion were:

• Srikanth Meenakshi – Co-Founder, Funds India Ltd. (Moderator)
• Srikanth Tanikella – Senior Vice President- Mutual Fund Operations, CAMS
• Rajiv Shastri – Executive Director & CEO, Essel Finance
• Anish Kumar – Regional Head- Sales, South, Canara Robeco
• Siddhartha Bhattacharyya – Vice President and Regional Head – South, Franklin Templeton
• Balakrishna Kini – Deputy Chief Executive, AMFI
• Ramakrishna V Nayak – CFP, Dakshin Capital

During his talk at this panel discussion, Mr. Tanikella highlighted the need for IFAs to keep up with the growth of the Mutual Fund industry. As an individual entity who guides their clients through an entire gamut of financial investments and transactions, an IFA is expected to stay updated with the latest developments in the sector. In the context of the Mutual Fund industry in India, IFAs have been working quite well towards managing their client’s wealth and expectations. However, the Mutual Fund industry in India has been growing steadily at a rate of 40% per annum, and the onus now sits on the Advisors to match this pace.

As Mr. Tanikella pointed out in his talk, “With the Mutual Fund industry going through massive upheavals due to the inroads made by technology, it is the perfect time for IFAs to work towards going from good to great”. Bio-metric eKYC, in particular, was one of the tools that he spoke about that could eliminate a lot of the slower processes involved in completing the KYC process of a customer. He further added that “IFAs need to push the use of technology while on-boarding investors. This makes the process easier for them, helping them reach their targets faster.” He went on to point out that CAMS offers a range of tools that help IFAs service their customers easily, including a few new tools that are yet to be released to the public.

In the case of the Indian Mutual Fund industry, it is essential that IFAs focus on staying ahead of the technological developments pushing the sector forward. This will help them take a step towards greater service. Utilizing the tools and services they currently have at their disposal is the first step in this direction. The panel discussion concluded by stating that though IFAs have achieved beyond what was expected of them earlier, their focus should now be on striving for greater results. This can only be done if they’re to take into the account the development of newer tools and leverage the benefits it offers.