An analysis of the investor complaints received by the top 10 fund houses shows that the number of complaints has dropped by 30% last fiscal. The total number of complaints received by the top 10 AMCs has dropped from 30,065 in FY13-14 to 20,963 in FY14-15.
Birla Sun Life saw the highest drop in investor complaints. Its investor complaints fell from 6,056 in FY13-14 to 1,117 in FY14-15. Among the top 10 AMCs, HDFC was the only fund house which saw a marginal increase in investor complaints. It had the highest number of complaints (6,023) in the industry.
Among the top 10 AMCs, DSP BlackRock received the least number of complaints. From 705 in FY13-14, its complaints dropped to 105 in FY14-15.
Investor complaints can also be a function of the investor base. Generally, larger the investor base higher is the number of complaints received by such fund house.
The investor complaints data shows that majority of the complaints were resolved within 30 days. Majority of the complaints were regarding errors in investor details, discrepancies in account statements, and non-updation of changes viz. address, PAN, bank details, nomination, etc.
One way to ascertain the efficiency of a AMC’s customer service is the percentage of complaints against folios. UTI, which has the largest number of folios (96.53 lakh) received 4,345 complaints, less than the 6,023 complaints received by HDFC. UTI’s percentage of complaints against folios was 4% while HDFC’s percentage of complaints against folios was 12%. Reliance which has the second highest investor base had complaints to folio ratio of 4%.
Interestingly, the percentage of complaints against folios for DSP BlackRock was 0%. It had 105 complaints against 30.48 lakh folios.
Fund officials say that adoption of technology, automation and increased focus on customer service has helped the industry minimize errors. “Our trustees take customer complaints very seriously. So we make sure that our customer service is good. Also, the industry has adopted technology and automation which has led to drop in investor complaints,” said the operations head of a bank sponsored fund house.
Fund officials say that as the industry adopts more automation to process transactions, the number of investor complaints is likely to go down further.
