Finnet: Less legwork for agents, investors

Necessity is said to be the mother of invention, and at times it has the ability to turn rivals into business partners. So it comes as no surprise that the two leading registrar and transfer agents for mutual funds – CAMS and Karvy Computershare, who between them service 95 per cent of Indian mutual funds – have come together to offer a unified product called Finnet.

The product offers may useful functions for investors, who can now obtain updates on all their fund investments in one consolidated statement.

This software allows independent financial advisors to service their customers by providing enhanced after-sales support. Until now Karvy and CAMS had separate software packages to generate online statements and to monitor the asset allocation at the customer or family level. The new system will integrate both databases and provide the investor with a bird's eye view of all his holdings.

The lack of regular updates on their investments is one problem that many mutual fund investors face today. The new product offered by these registrars obviates this difficulty. Here is what it offers:

Consolidated account statement: Investors can now request for a single consolidated account statement across their entire holdings in CAMS and Karvy serviced mutual funds.

If you have a registered email address across your entire portfolio you can use this service to get a PDF account statement e-mailed to you.

In fact, the provider promises the account statement within an hour of request. This statement will divulge the funds held by you, the number of units held, prevailing NAV and the calculated market value.

Consolidated portfolio statement: This statement contains balances by security, cost value, market value, period of holding and return on investment.

Consolidated realised gains statement: This statement will tell your investment performance, capital gains and income for the current and last financial years emailed to your registered email address. The best part of all this is that the services come free to the investors.

For investors who do not have access to email, turning to independent financial advisors who have access to the product is a good course.

Investors who have not added email address at the time of submission of application form can do so by tendering a request to the registrar to avail these facilities.

Independent financial advisors are still grappling with the abolishment of entry loads on sale of mutual funds. With fresh businesses remaining dull, unless distributors provide value-added service to their clientele the advisors may find it arduous to retain customers, especially with stiff competition from big national distributors, share brokers and banks.

One way to reduce the legwork and drudgery would be to adapt new technology is through tools such as Finnet.

For distributors and independent financial advisors, this product comes at a more affordable cost then the ones being used now. Upgrades will be provided automatically.

Here's how Finnet works for a mutual fund agent:

It makes the job of filling application forms easier and seamless. Once client details are captured through the purchase of one fund product, the details can be used for subsequent transactions by mapping this information into the application forms.

For instance if a client has invested in a mutual fund scheme and is planning to invest in another, the agent can take a form that has all the basic details filled in to get the signature of the client, along with cheque.

A visit to the registrar's office can done away with. All the distributor needs to do is scan the application form online from his office and send it via Finnet.

This makes it easier for agents to log in application forms electronically before 3 p.m., the cut-off time for the day's NAV, saving time and transportation costs involved in going to the registrar's office to submit the application form in time for stamping.

The cheque will be picked up by a registrar-appointed agency from distributor's office. The original application forms, however, have to be couriered to the respective registrar within 15 days.

The investor's statement of account can be generated the very next day to forward to the client. For subsequent transactions like redemptions, top ups and switch-ins, too, the distributor can generate the request from this platform.

If an investor has multiple accounts within the family and uses a common e-mail address in application forms, the product allows generation of a consolidated single statement for the entire family. For systematic investment plan investments, the platform will alert the distributor when the final instalment is due.