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NJ Wealth is one of India’s largest distributors in terms of the commissions received and the third largest in terms of AUM. What are the things that have contributed to this achievement?
When we started NJ Wealth as a B2B2C distribution platform in the year 2003, we had no real target as to where we will reach or how big we will grow.
The driving force behind this growth has been the trust of our NJ Wealth Partners (associated mutual fund distributors). They are the real champions who have sweated it out during all market cycles and have adapted themselves in the face of changing markets. Yet, their perseverance and hard work still continues. We are more than happy to really do all that is required to keep the momentum in terms of our business focus, building tech capabilities, tools & support in form of marketing, sales, product basket, ease of operations, dedicated mentorship and so on.
Just to add because of the high focus on digital empowerment, we were near to 100% digital before the outbreak of Covid 19 and our NJ Wealth Partners were fortunate to build their businesses even in difficult times. As of now, we have nearly 30,000 active NJ Wealth Partners across India with whom we share our success and have an AUM of close to Rs.1.33 lakh crore as on Jan 31, 2023.
ARN registrations have picked up after two consecutive years of decline due to the ban on upfront commissions and Covid-19. Why do you think people are finding MF distribution attractive again?
We see the mutual fund distribution space as a key enabler for financial literacy and intermediation, thus ultimately ensuring that the masses have access to mutual funds and other financial products. To achieve this, one cannot rely on digital channels alone.
You need a person, someone to talk to, someone to trust and help investors with a lot of things in the journey. Currently, the country has very few mutual fund investors. Mutual fund distribution, hence, continues to be a very attractive business proposition; only the individual has to be educated about the same which we are very actively doing. In the current FY, we have already added 6,000 plus new NJ Wealth partners till Jan 2023.
Why do you think distributors should join a platform like NJ Wealth?
There is an African Proverb I am reminded of, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” But I even disagree with this in part. Even to go fast, I feel that you need to have some kind of association in our business which has a gestation period.
You need someone to empower you right from day one with all the technology, marketing, sales and operational solutions. As you grow, your focus should be less on administration, team management, client servicing and so on and you should be careful not to hit a plateau.
Based on internal studies, we can only say that a diligent NJ Partner establishes his business faster, scales faster and grows bigger than the competition. We are happy to share with you that currently, we have 151 NJ Wealth partners with an AUM of more than Rs.100 crore, 312 partners with an AUM of Rs.50 to 100 crore and 2,186 partners with an AUM of Rs.10 to 50 crore. So yes, if you ask me, you need a platform to taste real success.
Can you help us understand the cost analysis of working with platforms like yours vis-à-vis working independently?
When one works independently lots of time, effort and of course money would be needed to manage business operations, build and upgrade technological capabilities, and many such other requirements which would result in less time available to interact with the existing customers and acquire new customers.
It is up to an individual person to see the value in terms of working independently and managing everything on his own as mentioned above or associating with a platform and leaving many of the things to us while focusing on acquiring and meeting customers. I always say the opportunity is immense and it is always better to travel with less baggage if we want to go far.
What kind of support do you offer to the existing Partners apart from software solutions?
At NJ Wealth, we take pride in offering 360-degree support to all our partners as required to grow and scale the distribution business. The support can be broadly classified in areas of digital offerings or tech solutions, training, marketing, sales, research and customer care. Almost every business need is well taken care of by us. On the digital offerings, I would highlight our investor desk called the NJ E-Wealth Account which offers access to a wide product basket and has strong reporting and transacting capabilities. To our partners, we are offering NJ Partner Desk which is like a single window to manage & track his entire business.
I would also like to highlight that our platform has worked independently on granular areas like customer servicing, portfolio reviews, ready product baskets, customer communications, data analytics for cross-selling & upselling, personal branding, business MIS & insights, CRM, practice management, and so on. Combined, we feel that an individual will have almost everything at his disposal to set his own pace and grow in the business.
You can become NJ Wealth Partner by clicking here.
