SEBI is said to have asked fund houses to give 50% of the two basis points corpus meant for investor awareness programs (IAP) to AMFI. This will be discussed in the forthcoming board meeting to be held on Thursday.
If SEBI’s proposal is accepted by AMCs, AMFI will utilize this corpus to conduct IAPs across the country on its own, said two people familiar with the development. “All AMCs should come to a consensus on this. I don’t think everyone would agree to share the IAP corpus,” said an AMFI board member.
SEBI has mandated AMCs to invest two basis points of their assets under management on investor awareness activities.
Typically, AMCs take help from independent agencies, distributors and media houses to conduct IAPs. In fact, some AMCs have tied up with regional newspapers to reach out to the hinterland.
Last year, at the CII MF Summit, SEBI Chief U.K Sinha had urged AMCs to improve the quality of investor awareness campaigns and utilize the two basis points of AUM set aside for investor education more effectively. “I would urge the industry to take it up seriously. We can’t be silent spectators. If the corpus is not spent well SEBI would step in and deploy it on its own. I hope this situation would not arise,” Sinha said.
Based on the current AUM, AMCs have Rs.260 crore at their disposal to spend on IAPs.
AMFI data shows that since beginning i.e. from May 2010 to December 2015, 40 AMCs have conducted 60,270 programs in 485 cities covering over 19.50 lakh participants.
