MF investors still await a consolidated statement

If you are a mutual fund investor with a permanent account number (PAN) and are wondering why you are not being sent the consolidated accounts statement (CAS) mandated by Sebi, you needn’t worry. Fund managers are themselves not clear on how to go about it.

CAS is a single account statement that consolidates financial transactions in an investor’s folios across schemes of all mutual funds.

In November last year, the Association of Mutual Funds in India (Amfi) had mandated that all mutual fund transactions, effective from October, be clubbed in one statement and sent across to investors.

This was in line with an amendment in the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) regulations. They now state that the asset management company should ensure the consolidated account statement for each calendar month is issued on or before the 10th day of the succeeding month. It should detail all transactions and holdings at the end of the month, including the transaction charges paid to the distributor across schemes of all mutual funds, to all investors whose folios have seen transactions that month.

A NEVER-ENDING WAIT

• Amfi mandates single accounts statement in November
• Sebi's regulation asks MFs to ensure CAS every month
• Fund managers’ different interpretations make things unclear
• Confusion over micro-SIP transactions' eligibility for CAS
• PAN, KYC and identical holders a must for CAS
• MFs say operational issues regarding data sharing

However, barring a few, all investors continue to get separate statements from different fund houses. Says the chief executive officer (CEO) of a mid-sized fund house, “Investors whose investments fall in the micro-SIP category (annual investment not exceeding Rs 50,000) will not get the combined statement.”

On the contrary, the executive vice president of a foreign fund house, says, “This has nothing to do with micro-SIP. If PAN is available, even if the annual investment is below Rs 50,000, investors should get the combined statement, provided there are transactions in the concerned month.”

According to distributors, if an investor’s overall annual investments through SIPs cross Rs 50,000, s/he should be provided with CAS.

According to the amended regulations, the asset management company should identify common investors across fund houses by their permanent account numbers.

Moreover, while issuing a combined statement, only folios having financial transactions in a month, identical holders and KYC-compliant unit holders will be considered.

Some say unless data is shared, there would be operational issues, as the back office system gets ready. “We have sent the required details and investors should get the combined statements in the next three-four weeks,” says the CEO of a foreign fund house.

Fund houses have outsourced the combined statements to a third vendor, which would be responsible for sending documents to investors.

“Right now, registrars and transfer (R&T) agents are dumping transaction details to vendors on the basis of PAN. Meanwhile, we are making sure that we keep sending separate statements to investors till the process settles down in a few months,” explains a compliance official at a large-sized fund house.

According to Amfi, as PAN-based KYC is mandatory for all purchases and would be updated by virtue of a purchase transaction, a CAS will be sent to the KYC address of the investor. However, if the KYC is not updated in any folio considered for consolidation, it will be sent to the address available in a folio in which the investor carried the month’s last transaction.