Aptly titled "Winning in Turbulent Times", the first Businessworld Mutual Fund India Summit kicked off with a packed audience. Aashish P. Sommaiyaa, Managing Director, MotilalOswal AMC started the day's proceedings with a highly pertinent talk on the challenges being faced by Independent Financial Advisors (IFA's) today.
In recent times, the IFA community has had a rough ride of sorts. Starting from 2009, SEBI has been tightening the so called regulatory noose; choking smaller IFA's in terms of reduced commissions, the passing on of the service tax burden, and the well-publicized and controversial disclosure norms that are due to take flight from October this years.
It is estimated that only one in five ARN (AMFI Registration Number) holders are actually actively selling Mutual Funds today.
Sommaiyaa drew upon his 16+ years of experience to deliver a succinct and hard hitting talk on the challenges being faced by IFA's, launching the summit with panache. He mentioned that IFA's exist at any point in time, in an environment with four key stakeholders - the regulator, the investor, the asset management companies, and intra channel and inter channel competition.
Sommaiyaa proposed that it is a mistake to adopt a 'stopping and starting' mind set when it comes to dealing with regulatory, market, client attitude or technological shifts. Instead, he offered that the mind-set in itself needs to morph into one of 'evolution' if IFA's are to continue succeeding in these times of change.
