Come February 15, 2019, electronic NACH mandate generated through eSign on or after September 26 will no longer be valid.
So if you have created SIPs of your clients through e-mandate on or after September 26, 2018, you will have to obtain their physical signature on the new National Automated Clearing House (NACH) mandate form to keep their SIPs activated.
In a circular issued by National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI), the government has clarified that post the Supreme Court on validity and use of Aadhaar, eSign based e-mandate will be valid till February 15, 2019. In the meantime, AMCs, R&T agents and exchange platforms will have to replace the eSign mandate with either physical mandate or other variants of e-mandate.
The e-mandate facility was started to reduce the SIP registration cycle to just two to three days, as compared to two to three weeks earlier.
However, with the new guidelines, distributors will now have to register paper based mandates for their investors, which is time consuming as it involves obtaining signature of an investor on the form and submission of physical form at service centre for processing.
Registrar such as CAMS and MF Utility have come out with online solutions to update e-mandate of such investors.
CAMS has been sharing pre-filled mandate form with investors asking them to sign on it physically and send it back to them via email by taking its photograph.
Similarly, MF Utility has launched a new facility through which your clients can update their existing mandates and continue their SIPs.
For new SIP investors, R&T agents and fund houses are currently looking at ways to simplify e-mandate process. But for now, your clients can either submit physical NACH mandate form or use their net banking account to start SIPs by adding the fund house as a biller to start fresh SIPs.
