Govt holds meeting to evolve strategy to make MF industry more lucrative

03 Jul 2012 Evaluate

In its bid to breathe new life into the weakening mutual fund industry, the government is engaging with the Mutual Fund (MF) industry and the capital market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) in order to chart out measures to revive investors’ interest in this asset class. The government is contemplating the idea of making mutual fund products more competitive in order to attract greater retail participation through innovative financial literacy programmes.

R Gopalan, Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance during his meeting with the representatives of the Mutual Fund Industry and Financial Advisors’ Association to evolve a common strategy to revitalize the mutual fund industry, opined that special emphasis would be given to improve penetration of MF products in Tier II and Tier III cities/towns and to redress the grievance of investors. The meeting was also attended by other senior officials of the ministry of finance and SEBI.

The mutual fund industry voiced its concerns on a host of issues during their meeting with the Finance Ministry officials. The industry’s demands ranged from passing on the burden of 12 percent service tax on purchase of schemes on customers to pitching for higher administrative expenses. While, the industry wants that service tax be borne by consumers and should be kept out of the total expense ratio, it has also demanded an increase in the expense ratio, which is mainly administrative expenditure, to 2.25 percent from 2.20 percent -- of which 2 percent is administrative expense and 0.20 percent exit load.

The government is also believed to have asked the SEBI to consider re-introduction of commission for brokers known as entry load, as its banning led to drying up of inflows into mutual funds. The entry load of 2.25 percent which was paid as commission to distributors of mutual funds, was banned in 2009 by the then SEBI chief C B Bhave, who felt that investors were being taken for a ride by distributors who encouraged investors to churn their portfolios.

The government and SEBI are chalking out plans to reverse the declining trend in gross asset mobilization by the MFs, which have been falling since 2009-10. The Mutual Fund Advisory Committee of SEBI has been meeting to consider the various steps that would need to be taken to give additional boost to the industry. The objective of the Government and SEBI is to specifically align the interests of all stakeholders and streamline the operational procedures and to achieve higher growth in the MF industry.

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