PowerMF Blog – Empower Yourself

Hello! My name is Fundu Vishy – Your “Mutual”  friend in the ‘often considered complicated but not actually so’ world of Mutual Funds in India.

In this first blog post, I will take the opportunity to introduce PowerMF and how it is going to ‘empower you’ – the investor to easily manage your mutual fund investments on this platform.

Over the past few months, there have been many developments in the Mutual Fund Industry. The recent ‘No Load’ guidelines by SEBI, implemented with effect from August 1, 2009, will probably go down as one of the most important developments in the mutual fund industry since the rules that allowed private players to enter the Fund Management business. This new development is expected to have a major impact in the way Mutual Fund Distribution happens in the market, and more importantly, how the investors are going to invest and manage their Mutual Fund investments in the coming days.

As brought out by AMFI in its AGNI guidelines, there are two types of distributors – one who provides basic service, and the one who provides value-added services, including advice. These distributors have, over the past 15 years, taken the industry to the nook and corner of the country and believed to have brought in over two crore investors into the Mutual Fund Industry. However, with the advent of this new ‘No Load guidelines’, it is very clear that only those distributors who are able to demonstratively provide value added services will be able to survive in the market place. The impact, it is understood, is clear, as the industry has been seeing diminishing interest by distributors in the Mutual Fund product and thus reduced procurement of Mutual Fund investment by AMCs. This shows the shift of Mutual Fund from being a darling of distributors to an add-on service along with various other products offered by a distributor like equities and insurance.

On the other side, looking at the current developments from the investor’s point of view, there are a lot of positives. The ‘no load’ provides the customers with reduced cost of investments and hence, improved returns. This makes mutual fund investments much more ideal for the investor, more than what it has been so far. Just because there is a reduced interest by the distributors, owing to the shrinking revenues in the business of distribution of mutual funds, an investor should not lose out on the benefits that the Mutual Fund industry offers.

Now the PowerMF Project was conceived and developed in order to provide the ‘No Load Benefit’, even before the new guidelines were introduced. The whole idea was to explore  the possibility of providing No Load Investment by tying up with AMCs and ‘Empowering Investors’ to manage their investments effectively using technology.

Through PowerMF, the future of personal finance investment in general and Mutual Fund investment in particular is going to be based on how aware and empowered the investor is, and only those who are empowered will be able to benefit from the industry. This was brought out clearly by the evolving regulatory position.

As the first step in the path of empowering the investor, PowerMF will enable the investor to have access to the best of the information on mutual fund schemes and their performance along with comprehensive analytical tools. One of the most comprehensive, yet easy to use, platforms for any product in general and Indian Mutual Funds in particular.

You can now register on PowerMF.com and do a test run of its features . Connect with me on Facebook or Twitter for the latest updates from this blog and on the latest news from the world of Mutual Funds.

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