A high majority of complaints are resolved within 30 days.
Fund houses have got quicker in resolving investor complaints with most grievances being resolved within 30 days, shows an analysis of complaints data posted on AMC websites.
Reliance Mutual Fund received 13679 complaints in FY 2012-13 and resolved 13424 of them within 30 days. Only 63 complaints took up to three months for getting redressed. Similarly, DSP Black Rock received 2025 complaints during FY 2012-13 out of which 2023 were resolved within 30 days. Tata Mutual Fund received 1462 during the same period and 1443 were resolved within 30 days. IDFC Mutual Fund too resolved 971 complaints within 30 days, out of the total 988 complaints received by it during last year.
More the number of folios the higher tend to be the complaints. For instance, Reliance has more than 63 lakh folios and it received 13679 while Axis Mutual Fund which has close to five lakh folios received comparatively less complaints (361). Similarly, a new fund house like IIFL with 26928 folios received only 41 complaints.
An analysis of investor complaints posted by AMCs on their websites shows that majority of these complaints are in connection with errors in statement of accounts and relating to non-update of changes in address, PAN, bank details, nomination, etc. The non receipt of redemption proceeds and account statement were the other major reasons for complaints.
Fund officials say that sometimes errors occur while interpreting the inputs received in application forms from investors at the R&T end. Most of the large fund houses have their in house customer relationship management system (CRM) where all complaints are captured. “Some fund houses have their in house CRM system where complaints are recorded and a root cause analysis is conducted. Not all the communication received from investors is categorized as complaint. Some investors write a letter asking why the scheme has not declared dividend,” said an operations head of a bank sponsored fund house.
The complaints are redressed either by the registrar of an AMC or the investor relations team of a fund house. Investors can either register their grievances to the respective registrar and transfer agent appointed by an AMC or directly to the fund house through emails or telephoning call centers of AMCs. Investors can also walk in to a nearest AMC branch office or the registrar’s office to register their complaints.
Fund houses are required to publish this data to comply with SEBI’s 2010 diktat. Acting on the feedback from investors and investor associations to improve transparency in the ‘grievance redressal mechanism’, SEBI came out with a regulation which mandated fund houses to disclose investor complaints on their websites, which is also published on AMFI’s website and AMC’s annual report.
The complaints which fund houses receive are broadly divided in three categories. These are non-receipt of money (dividend units, redemption proceeds), account statement (non-receipt of account statement, errors in account statement), and service related (wrong switch between schemes, deviation from scheme attributes).
