Two MFs tie up with CAMS to improve service
by Dheer Kothari

Mumbai, July 25: At least two mutual funds have tied up with registrar, CAMS Ltd, to provide upgraded services to their investors. More are expected to follow suit as "reverse engineering" can be easily done by the major players in the industry for the benefit of investors, industry sources maintain. The CEO of Kotak Mahindra AMC, Shekhar Sathe, said on Tuesday that under its D-Kredit facility, redemption and dividend payouts would be directly credited to the investors' bank accounts. "This facility is currently available to account holders of HDFC Bank only; many more banks are expected to be added soon," he added.

The new facility will lead to a saving of at least two days for the investor besides elimination of postal theft risk and the physical effort to bank the cheque. "Investors can now opt for direct credit at the time of investing while existing investors can opt for this facility at any time," Sathe said.

The chief of marketing at Sun F & C Mutual Fund, A Srinivasan, said service standards would be the key to success in the business. He claimed that Sun F & C was the first to launch daily dividend in the liquid scheme which has not been provided by any other fund so far.

Another initiative taken by Kotak is the concept of 'Holiday NAVs' which is meant for all redemption, purchase and switch done by investors in the debt schemes- K Gilt and K Bond. This will reduce the "incidence of idle funds for investors in debt schemes," said Prakash Dalal, chief marketing officer of Kotak Mutual.

Another improvement will be a T+0/T+1 standard for all non-redemption transactions.

As a result, all service requests received till 4pm will be completed on the same day, director of CAMS Ltd, V Shankar assured. In fact, Srinivasan said Sun F & C was planning T+0 standard for all redemptions in the liquid fund.

Other services being offered by CAMS include capital gains calculation statements to be sent to investors at the end of every financial year and confirmation statements to investors for every transaction.

In fact, the CAMS website offers investors several choices including email confirmation within a few hours of tendering their applications and also receipt of account statements through email.