Page 19 - BANKING FINANCE JULY 2016

P. 19

MUTUAL FUND

NEWS

You can now follow the paperless KYC process for Small town people invest-

mutual funds ing in Mutual Funds more

The know you customer (KYC) docu- This is being done by harnessing two People from small towns such as
mentation has been a deterrent to tools: Aadhaar (where all your neces- Palakkad, Daman, Asansol and
mutual fund (MF) investing,
but in the past one year, sary details are already Imphal are
fund houses have made captured) and Internet (so investing in
progress as the capital mar- that the process can be fol- the capital
ket regulator, Securities and lowed from your home or markets
Exchange Board of India office). To this effect, there through
(SEBI), has eased the on-boarding pro- have been two innovations. mutual
cess. The aim is to help reduce the Last year, e-KYC was launched. ICICI funds at a faster pace than the well-
paperwork and ensure that you don't Prudential Asset Management Co. Ltd heeled residents of metros including
need to wait long for your KYC to be has become the first fund house to Mumbai and New Delhi a trend that
processed before investing. launch a completely paperless, biomet- may deepen the local financial mar-
ric KYC. kets and reduce dependence on over-
seas investors.
SEBI permits Amazon, Flipkart to sell Mutual Funds
Sale of mutual fund schemes in the
SEBI is set to allow online marketplaces such as Flipkart and Amazon to sell smaller cities and towns have grown
mutual funds to make these products more accessible 45% in two years compared with a
to people. SEBI panel on digitization of financial services, 6% increase in the top 15 cities, ac-
headed by Infosys Ltd co-founder Nandan Nilekani, sub- cording to the Reserve Bank of India's
mitted its recommendation on 30 May, two people di- Financial Stability Report.
rectly familiar with the development said.
"This indicates geographical diversifi-
Initially, SEBI will allow only a few online marketplaces that meet certain criteria, cation and brings stability to the mu-
including minimum net-worth, sales, after-sales track record, brand popularity and tual funds industry in India, warrant-
customer base to sell mutual fund products, one of the two people said. ing continued efforts for improving in-
vestor awareness and for strengthen-
Dhirendra Kumar, chief executive of mutual fund analytics firm Value Research ing the integrity of market processes
Ltd, disagreed with the net-worth and sales criteria proposed to select online and investor protection," the RBI said
intermediaries. "It is not necessary to stipulate any minimum net-worth norm in the report.
for an online marketplace to be eligible to sell mutual funds because the trans-
action is ultimately between the customer and the fund house, and the online
platform is only acting as the facilitator," Kumar said.

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