MF can be endorsed by celebrities: Sebi

The Sebi’s decision to allow roping in celebrities to endorse mutual fund products at the industry level is expected to increase the awareness and attract more individuals from smaller towns to invest in equity and debt instruments.

According to industry participants, the latest move by Sebi is a big positive for the industry, which has already started seeing a greater degree of interest from investors beyond top-15 cities over the past two years.

“Sebi’s move has brought a level playing field between the mutual fund industry and the insurance industry. This is definitely going to help improve the penetration of mutual fund products in India,” said Sunil Subramaniam, CEO of Sundaram AMC.

“Celebrities have helped in popularising various products which they have endorsed and expanded the market across sectors. The penetration of mutual funds in India is still very low and allowing celebrities to endorse it will definitely help in making it a household name in India,” said Jaideep Bhattacharya, managing director and CEO of top3choice.com, a mutual fund distribution platform that runs on artificial intelligence.

Since the industry is well regulated in India with lot of guidelines to protect investors interest, Mr Bhattacharya said it is the safest platform to enter the capital market for even a person who lacks financial literacy.

In 2016, the mutual fund industry saw an addition of 70 lakh new investor accounts taking the total tally to around 5.3 crore with the total assets under management (AUM) close to about `17 lakh crore. The regulator has allowed mutual funds to spend about 2 per cent of their total AUM on investor awareness programmes out of which half the amount should be contributed to AMFI for carrying out similar activities.