Over 650 IFAs across the country came together for a three-day annual Mutual Fund Round Table Conference (MFRT) organized by ASK Circle group in Jaipur from 5th to 7th August.
Day one saw industry officials share their insights on how IFAs need to prepare themselves in the current scenario. Pankaj Razdan, MD & CEO, Birla Sunlife Insurance, Dy. CEO Financial Services Aditya Birla Group spoke about how IFAs need to solve community problems in order to develop trust. Chandresh Nigam, CEO, Axis MF advised the audience to be empathetic to build trust with clients.
S Naren, CIO, ICICI Prudential AMC stressed on the importance of SIPs and how asset allocation can help IFAs create the right portfolio mix. He advised IFAs not to over-diversify their clients’ portfolio.
The event had a wide variety of topics and enough food for thought for IFAs to grow their business. Suraj Kaeley of UTI MF gave tips to build a successful advisory practice while Himanshu Vyapak, Deputy CEO, Reliance Nippon AMC shared his ideas on how to achieve the next Rs. 100 crore AUM.
IFAs were awarded for their extraordinary contribution in growing their AUM. MFRT Samman Awards were presented to 11 extraordinary IFAs who made a mark in the industry by their exemplary work. The winners were selected on the basis of innovative approach in their marketing strategy to acquire clients.
Day two had a packed agenda with sessions running simultaneously throughout the day. Among the sessions which were received very well by audience was by Prof. Kamal Jain of IIM Indore who stressed on the importance of negotiation and art of negotiation.
Another interesting session was on ‘Failures vs. Success’ in which the speakers shared how success has inspired them to grow as well as what they learned from failures. Kalpen Parekh, MD, Sales & Marketing, IDFC AMC and Sanjeev Patkar, Fund Manager – AIF, SBI MF shared their success stories and how they got inspired to learn more. Ashok Kanawala, Head of Products at HDFC MF and Ankur Thakur, National Sales Head of L&T MF too shared their learnings from success and failures. Akhil Chaturvedi, Sr. Vice President & Head Sales of Motilal Oswal shared his journey in MF industry and how failures gave him the courage to pursue his passion.
The most applauded was the breakaway sessions conducted by Jigar Parekh of Anchor Edge who spoke on the topic ‘KNOW your client’s personality’. He said, “You will be successful in your advisory practice if you are able to understand your investors behaviour and in turn be able to influence them.”
Sadique Neelgund, Founder of Network FP shared top 10 strategies to organize successful IAPs. Other informative sessions were conducted by Sunil Jhaveri of MSJ Capital & Corporate Services, Dharmendra Satapathy of Next Level Education, Sanjay Sinha of Citrus Advisors and Vinayak Sapre of IFA Insights.
A panel discussion was conducted on ‘technology creates disruption’ which emphasized the benefits of adopting technology to grow business. The panel consisted of Amit Nigam, Head-Equities, Peerless MF, Peshotan Dastoor, National Sales Director, Franklin Templeton MF, Amar Shah, Head-Sales Retail, ICICI Pru MF, Dhaval Kapadia of Morningstar and Ajay Arora, CEO of DATAComp Web Technologies. This session was moderated by Amit Trivedi of Karmyog.
The third day was completely dedicated to business networking sessions. 15-20 groups were formed with members from different cities with the aim that they would exchange leads and share tips and ideas to grow their business.
MFRT introduced a new awards this year called ‘Tech Guru Awards’ to IFAs for using online MF transactional platforms. The winners were: Saurabh Rastogi, Wealth Enabler Advisors, Aurangabad based adviser Suresh Lahoti and Pankaj Ladha from Kota. These advisers were awarded for executing 200-300 transactions within a span of three months.
The ASK Circle team led by Bhavik Udeshi, Bhavesh Shah, Kanak Jain, S K Bagaria and other members were widely praised by IFAs and sponsors for pulling off this event successfully.
Ask Circle had arranged four pre-conference sessions which were conducted by the experts of the advisory fraternity before the start of the event this year. Some of the topics included ‘roadmap for IFAs to become RIAs’, ‘using online MF platforms’ and ‘combination of behavioural finance and financial planning’.
ASK Circle was formed in June 2007 and held its first annual conference in 2009. MFRT 2017 which is to be held in Mumbai has already got registrations from over 430 IFAs.
Cafemutual was the online media partner for MFRT Summit 2016.