Amfi asks fund houses to improve investor awareness

To attract more investment into mutual funds, the Association of Mutual Funds in India (Amfi) has asked the industry players to organise around 200 investor awareness programmes in a month.

"We have suggested individual members to organise four to five investor awareness programmes in a month to better reach out to the masses," Amfi chairman AP Kurian told PTI.Currently the MF industry has 36 active players and if they follow the suggestion, then there would be around 200 such programmes in the country in a month.

Amfi is the apex body of all the asset management companies (AMCs).

"Though these programmes would be conducted mostly in and around the metros, we also want to cover the non-investor community in the tier II and III cities and also districts," Kurian said.

The programme would be carried out under the Amfi banner and would be launched soon, as and when the fund houses come up with their plan, Kurian added.

Analysts said MFs is not the most preferred investment option among investors as most of them are not aware of the benefits and how to approach for such investments.

"Certain section of investors feel they can invest in MFs only through brokers. After the banning of entry load which reduced broker participation, inflows into equity schemes have come down which shows that less investor participation," Taurus Mutual Fund managing director RK Gupta said.

Following the Sebi ban on entry-load in August 2009, MF distributors found it unprofitable to continue the business. Before the ban, distributors were getting 2.5 per cent commission called entry-load on business generated by them from AMCs. After the ban, thet are not getting this commission from AMCs, but can still ask the investors to pay them for the advice or service rendered.

"Amfi is trying to educate investors that they can invest directly into the schemes online without brokers' help," Gupta added.