Refusing to budge on mandatory disclosure of commissions and other agent payouts by mutual funds, regulator Sebi on Wednesday said that it is in favour of a model where investor buys these products di
Refusing to budge on mandatory disclosure of commissions and other agent payouts by mutual funds, regulator Sebi on Wednesday said that it is in favour of a model where investor buys these products direc-tly without any middlemen and a new online platform for buying and selling these instruments would be in place very soon.
The distributors and financial advisors have been lobbying hard agai-nst mandatory disclosure of commissions by fund houses, which have also been asked by the regulator to disclose to investors salaries and other payouts to top management.
“We should worry more about the investors than about those doing business of mutual fund distribution. Globally, the mutual fund is moving towards direct buying. Anyway, IFAs account for less than ten per cent of mutual fund industry’s asset under management,” Sebi chairman U.K. Sinha said here on Wednesday.
He said the mutual fund space has been seeing some encouraging trends in recent years and in just three years, the AUM has more than doubled to over Rs 14 lakh crore, while the number of folios has crossed 4.8 crore.
Besides, the net equity inflows of MFs have gone up sharply at a time when the FPIs exposure to the Indian markets have come down marginally.
“Mutual funds are doing very well. Over 90 per cent of schemes have outperformed their benchmark indices over various time periods. Now, Sebi has enhanced the disclosure regime for greater transparency,” he said.
On capping expense ratio in some mutual fund schemes, the market regulator said that Sebi was very seriously looking at it.
