The mutual fund business is planning to launch a series of investor awareness programmes within the nation, in a make an effort to improve retail penetration. A choice to this effect was taken at the board meeting of the Association of Mutual Money in India (Amfi) on Monday. “Several industry issues were discussed. However, the primary issue was about reaching out to investors within the rural and semi-urban areas,” said a board member who was present at the meeting, who didn’t wish to be named.
Fund houses apparently have agreed to conduct at least 8-10 investor awareness programmes each month. The cost of such programmes will be borne by the fund itself, mentioned a source. However, AP Kurian, chairman, Amfi did not want to comment about the issue. India’s top 20 cities contribute over 90% of the industry’s total assets under management (AUM), according to a KPMG report. The industry has attracted flak from market regulator Sebi for not improving the retail base of investors.
India’s largest MF Reliance Mutual Fund, already conducts close to 75-100 attention programmes every month. “I would not call it an awareness programme. For us, it is like a ‘work website presentation’ exactly where we give people fundamental know-how of mutual money and their benefits” said Sundeep Sikka, CEO of Reliance MF. He added that there is tremendous opportunity to distribute mutual funds in the rural and semi-urban locations.
A number of marketplace participants really feel that small-sized fund houses might not be interested for the moment, especially when profits are a concern. “I do not think it will be compulsory for all fund houses,” said the CEO of the fund house. Lately, in an interview with FE, CEO of Amfi, HN Sinor had hinted at using Amfi’s corpus of over Rs 9 crore for conducting close to 100 programmes in a year with two programmes every week across the country.