‘Dhan’ stands for wealth. Dhanteras the first day of Diwali is considered an auspicious occasion by Hindus to buy gold and silver.
A few IFAs took this opportunity to help their clients grow their wealth through a slightly more modern avenue than gold. They ran SIP drives to encourage their clients to grow their wealth though the new-age avenue of wealth creation - mutual funds.
Here is their story.
IFA Rajesh Sharma, Optimise Financial Solutions, Amravati
Rajesh had run a SIP drive last year on Dhanteras. This year too he decided to continue the tradition and started the preparation on the day of Dusshera. He targeted both existing and new clients. Initially, he approached his existing clients and encouraged them to increase their investments. Moreover, he helped them see the benefit of starting a SIP now when the markets had corrected and accumulating more units. Around 45 existing clients participated in the SIP login day.
To acquire new clients, he asked for referrals and conducted IAPs at a police station and a village called Kura, a small town 31 km from Amravati. He explained to them the difference between traditional bank investments and market linked investments and long term benefits of SIPs. He asked them to look at equity funds if they were looking at five year plus horizon.
Overall, he activated 121 SIPs across 67 clients with an average SIP size of Rs. 1,800. He did majority of the transactions through the physical route.
IFA Sachin Kharate, Varad Financial Services, Nashik
Sachin started preparation of SIP login day a month ago by sending an email to his clients telling them that the market correction combined with the auspicious muhurat of Dhanteras offered an attractive entry point for increasing their allocation.
Sachin targeted those clients who had not linked their SIPs with financial goals. He helped them identify their financial goals and asked them to increase SIPs to achieve these goals.
He also asked his existing clients for referrals. To these potential clients, he explained the importance of goal based investing and benefits of SIP. He also helped them understand that the current correction provided an interesting entry point for investors.
Overall, he activated 300 new SIPs with average SIP size of about Rs. 1900 across 200 clients. Of the total 200 clients, 50 were first time SIP investors. Majority of the SIPs (280) were completed online on MFU platform while the rest were through the physical mode.
Ankit Agarwal of A. C. Agarwal Share Brokers, Vadodara
Ankit started the SIP drive preparation three months ago. He had advised his existing clients to exit markets a few months ago. That proved to be a right decision, as they were able to book profit. He approached these clients for re-investing their corpus via SIP. He explained to them that the correction was a good time to re-enter the market and now they would get more units for their investments.
To the new investors, he explained the benefits of SIP. He also explained to them about trail commission and helped them understand that mutual fund investments were a win-win for all stakeholders.
Overall, he activated 452 SIPs with an average SIP size of about Rs. 1300. All the SIPs were done on the NSE NMF II platform.
A few other IFAs and financial advisory firms too ran a SIP marathon on the occasion of Dhanteras. IFA Asoke Roy from Kolkata registered 327 SIPs, M/s Suresh Rathi, Jodhpur registered 2574 SIPs, Pramod Kumar and Mona Bhutani of Milestone Portfolio Consultants Pvt Ltd., Delhi registered 2084 SIPs and IFA Brijesh Kumar Darji from Dahod (Gujarat) registered 310 SIPs on the account of Dhanteras. However, at the time of publishing this article we could not get in touch with all of them. Our heartiest congratulations to them all!