Soon investors could walk into a recharge store and make investment in mutual fund schemes too!
Bengaluru-based digital payment company, Payworld has forayed into mutual fund distribution business. The company has empanelled with Reliance Mutual Fund to distribute mutual funds.
Payworld offers digital payment services to people through which they can transfer their money, pay utility bills and buy financial products such as mutual funds and insurance through physical outlets by paying cash. The company also facilitates SME loans. Currently, the company has one lakh retail touch points across 630 cities.
Praveen Dabhai, COO, Payworld told Cafemutual that the company is already into insurance distribution business and mutual fund distribution is an extension to their offerings. He said that the company has empanelled with Reliance Mutual Fund to start distribution business in three states – Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat and expects to roll out distribution business across the country in six months.
Sharing the rationale for this move, Himanshu Vyapak, Deputy CEO, Reliance Mutual Fund said that the fund house aims to reach out to retail investors particularly in small cities and town. “Since Payworld has a large presence in small cities and towns, we have partnered with them by developing a feature on their platform through which their customers can buy our schemes.
Also, Payworld can on board a client through Aadhaar based OTP authentication.”
He further said, “To start with, we distribute solution oriented schemes such as liquid funds for savings, equity hybrid fund for children education and marriage and gold accumulation fund for diversification. Very soon, we will offer retirement fund to Payworld customers.”
Currently, the fund house is imparting requisite training to retailers to distribute these products. So far, the fund house has trained 400 partners. Vyapak told Cafemutual that they aim to train 30,000 partners in one year.
As part of its digital push, SEBI allowed fund houses to facilitate transaction in mutual funds through e-wallets/digital wallets. However, the market regulator has put a limit of Rs.50,000 on such investments.
