Known as Vermaji among his peers, Rajendra Prasad Verma is the only advisor in Purnea, a small town of Bihar. With virtually zero awareness of mutual funds, Vermaji has made it his mission to spread the cause of mutual funds in his town. What gives him even greater pleasure than holding 100% share of AUM in his town is making people understand the relevance of mutual funds. It is this contribution that made MFRT bestow their Samman Award on him recently.
As can be imagined it has been a tough battle. After the entry load ban, Vermaji’s commission declined by 60%. However, he kept his faith in MF industry and decided to create financial awareness among people to grow his business. Though the results are slow from investor awareness programme in terms of business, he continues spreading MF awareness for the benefits of investors as well as the MF industry.
Vermaji says “The major difference between rich and middle class people is their investment pattern. Rich people invest in financial investments like mutual funds to grow their wealth. However, the middle class people stick to traditional investment avenues like gold, FD etc. I believe in educating these middle class people on MFs so that they could achieve their financial goals.”
Vermaji had started his career as a journalist in a newspaper called ‘Kichad Se Kamal’ that was owned by his father. However, he was not satisfied with the profession as he was fascinated with financial products. In 1994, he started selling products of Sahara India, post office savings and LIC. He realized that these products came with a disadvantage as they came with long lock in periods and hence were not liquid. Later, he came to know about liquidity and other benefits of mutual fund products when he underwent a training program of ICICI Prudential MF in which he learnt the concept of mutual funds. In 2002, he became a MF distributor. As of now, his asset under advisory is Rs 5 crore.
In future, Vermaji aims to create financial awareness among small entrepreneurs like vegetable vendors, grocery shop owners, and cloth- shop owners etc. According to him, this category of investors has greater potential to invest in mutual fund for long term.
