A Balasubramanian, CEO, Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund talks to Cafemutual about the upcoming CII Mutual Fund Summit 2014 and what participants can expect from the event. He says the event is designed to motivate and inspire participants to take up new challenges.
Since the last CII Summit, what has changed for the industry?
The mood of the industry has definitely changed. The industry went through a brief rough patch during the crisis in the debt market.
The progress made by the industry has been satisfying. The industry reached an important milestone of Rs. 10 lakh crore assets under management. Equity assets reached Rs. 2 lakh crore AUM. In one year period, equity funds delivered returns in the range of 40% to 50%. In general, the sentiment has improved post elections. The last year has been one of best years for the industry.
The industry should aim for reaching Rs. 20 lakh crore in the next five years and should have 20 crore customers.
What is the theme this year and why have you chosen it? How have you tried to keep the agenda different this time?
We have designed the agenda keeping in mind that participants should not get bored. This year’s summit will focus on market expansion. Thus, we have kept the theme as ‘Challenging the status quo – setting the growth plan’. The speakers will deliberate on challenging the status quo.
The CII MF Summit is completing a decade. The industry has completed 40 years since UTI came into existence and we are still talking about Rs.10 lakh crore AUM. We are still talking about 5% of savers putting money in mutual funds. The industry needs to think differently to get new customers as well as distributors. The industry needs to introspect what they did right so far and what they can do better to expand the market.
The event aims to build the self-confidence of industry stakeholders to take themselves to the next level. Participants can look forward to learning from experts outside of the industry. We have Anand Kumar (Founder of Super 30 - Ramanujan School of Mathematics) who has trained underprivileged students for IIT. All of his students have passed IIT and are today at respectable positions in the society.
CII MF Summit has always been the platform for the regulator to make important announcements. What are you looking forward to hear from the regulator this time?
Last year there were many expectations from market participants from the regulator. Most of the issues have been sorted. There is nothing much that we can expect. What the industry is really looking for is support from the regulator. SEBI is actively persuading the finance ministry to enable mutual funds to launch pension products. Apart from this, we are hoping for the section 80 C limit to be raised.
What can distributors look forward to from the event?
The theme and the agenda of CII MF Summit 2014 is different this time. We will not discuss the same thing which he have been discussing over the past few years. We need to learn and unlearn few things. The participants will walk away with a lot of positive feel.
The event has a great lineup of speakers and topics. Which session are you personally keenly looking forward to?
Almost all the sessions are interesting. We have allotted adequate time for each session. We also have Charles E F Millard who is going to talk about the success of pension industry in US. We are really thankful for him for agreeing to address the summit. I’m looking forward to the last speaker Anand Kumar.
What were the challenges for you as Chairman this time?
The challenge is to coordinate with the entire team and speakers. I have kept the theme practical and actionable. This is the third year in a row I’m chairing the event. It’s exciting and I’m keenly looking forward to it.
There are a couple of outside experts who will address the event this year. What can the industry officials look forward to from these speakers?
S Subramaniam’s session on ‘case studies of successful distribution models across other emerging markets & what can work for India’ would be very useful for the industry officials.
Cafemutual is the online media partner for CII Mutual Fund Summit 2014.
