M S Shabbir, President of Association of Professional Independent Financial Advisers (APIFA) talks to Cafemutual about the association’s origin, activities and future plans.
When was the group formed?
For a very long time 15-20 of Hyderabad’s leading and enthusiastic IFAs used to meet regularly on an informal basis. This continued until August 2012 when we formally registered our Association with Registrar of Societies, Andhra Pradesh. The correct name of our association is Association of Professional Independent Financial Advisers’ and not “Andhra Pradesh IFAs” as is perceived generally.
How many members does your group have?
Our group comprises 80 IFAs from different parts of the state. While these IFAs come from varied backgrounds – some from insurance, others from post office savings, they all have a reasonable AUM in mutual funds.
Is there any membership fee to join your group?
Yes. We have two types of membership namely - Governing Member and Ordinary Member. The joining fee or one-time entry fee for a Governing Member is Rs.5,000 plus an annual membership of Rs.1000. The annual membership fee for an Ordinary Member is Rs.500. There is no initial amount to be paid by ordinary members.
The office bearers can be elected from the governing members only. However, both the governing and ordinary members have an equal right for voting.
APIFA is an equal platform for all IFAs big and small. The idea behind having two types of membership is that we need a corpus amount to run the Society which will be contributed by IFAs who have a decent AUM. The ordinary membership was created keeping in mind the other IFAs.
What activities does your group undertake?
APIFA is a collective voice of IFA community and endeavors to proactively interact with market players, be it the regulator, AMCs, fellow IFAs or investors. We disseminate information on all matters to our members, guide them in setting up their business and interpret the regulatory changes. We encourage IFAs to diversify their offerings by including mutual funds. We also train and, motivate IFAs to upgrade themselves to adopt a goal based advisory or a comprehensive financial planning approach in their businesses. In short, we do everything that can transform an IFA from a sales person to a professional.
What is the objective/motto of your group?
· Be the collective voice of IFA community
· Develop and empower IFA community
· To prevent the mis-selling prevalent in the market by educating the investors and advisors
· Promote and aid in investor education programs
· To understand and cope with the regulatory changes
· To educate, inspire, improve and protect interest of the IFAs
· Define and maintain high professional and ethical standards, promote best practices and code of conduct
How do you interact with AMFI/SEBI regarding the issues in the mutual fund industry?
So far we have not represented to AMFI / SEBI. We requested AMFI to show-case the MF Utility program that is currently under development and I am glad to inform that Mr. V. Ramesh, Deputy CEO of AMFI deputed a member to present the product. He has taken our feedback for changes.
We feel that instead of making representations at the state or association level, all SEBI?AMFI related issues should be taken up by a national body of IFAs.
If a national group of IFAs is formed, will you merge or be a part of such a group?
Why not? In fact, APIFA has already passed a resolution to join Federation of Mutual Fund Distributor Associations in India (FOMDAI), an all India federation initiated by associations from the south. Both the President and Secretary of APIFA will be members of the Executive Committee Group. We are in the process of registration and will soon be approaching other associations to enroll FOMDAI.
How do AMCs support you?
A few AMCs gave us a helping hand by connecting us to other IFAs.
At our request, Franklin Templeton completely sponsored our “Fun n Learn” event conducted on 15th June, 2013. The event was a big success now other AMCs have also volunteered to sponsor our future events.
However, let me hasten to add that while AMCs may sponsor our events, the format, content and objective of the programs will be based on what our IFAs need – these are not product push events of AMCs.
What are your future plans for the group?
We plan to have a quarterly calendar for all members in addition to one gala event on an annual basis. Depending on the resources and demand we will organize guest speakers, training programs for personality development and public speaking opportunities for IFAs. We will impress upon AMCs to arrange qualified and eminent trainers of our choice. In our last meet, we encouraged IFAs to talk on “My journey as an IFA” where they revealed their business models and shared their strategies for surviving in these challenging markets.
We will recognize honor and share stories of fellow IFAs who have contributed to the industry in a humble way. It may not be out of place here to mention that APIFA members, Mr.T. Kumara Swamy and his wife Mrs. Savithri (both IFAs) took the initiative which finally resulted the nominees of IFAs receiving trail commission as pension for business generated during their life-time. We salute his contribution to the entire IFA community in India.
Mr. M. S. Shabbir, President of APIFA can be reached on 09949090786 or apifahyd@gmail.com.
