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20 years back, when mutual funds and SIPs were alien concepts for many and convincing a person to invest in market linked products was difficult, Mumbai MFD Vatsal Shah not only encouraged a PSU employee to investment in a market linked product like mutual funds to save for retirement but helped him achieve other life goals.
In fact, thanks to his guidance, the client was able to achieve his retirement target seven years before his retirement. He has now taken voluntary retirement to lead a stress-free retired life.
Recognising this, Axis Mutual Fund and Cafemutual felicitated Vatsal Shah and his daughter Shaili Shah (who now takes care of this client) with the prestigious ‘Sanjeevani MFD Awards’ at Cafemutual Ideas Fest 2024 (CIF 24) under the Visionary category.
Sanjeevani Visionary Award recognises MFD who have helped an individual secure his/her retirement life.
Sharing this unique story, Vatsal said that the client was focussed on his retirement. “We took him through the financial roadmap by factoring in inflation and post retirement expenses. We also recommended him to invest majority of corpus in equity funds and give some allocation to debt via aggressive hybrid funds considering the long-term nature of the goal. The client liked the clarity in our approach and readily started SIP with us. Eventually, we recommended him to increase his SIPs by 20% each year and top it up with lumpsum money whenever he received bonus.”
When asked how they dealt with pausing or exiting of SIP during market dislocation, his daughter Shaili said that MFDs should understand client's psychology on why they want to discontinue investing. She said, “If they have achieved their goal then we can't stop them exiting or pausing. If it is due to market fluctuations then we should educate them about the importance of staying invested for the long term and how compounding can help them achieve their goal.”
Thanks to guidance of Vatsal and Shaili, the client achieved his retirement corpus 7 years before his retirement. In fact, his money grew 40% more than what he targeted. Seeing immense growth in his investment portfolio, the client immediately took voluntary retirement to pursue his other life goals.
Sharing her learning, Shaili said that MFD should encourage their clients to start early for goals like retirement even with a small amount. This imbibes investing discipline in them and encourages goal based investing.