So you made a smart investment – picked a mutual fund of your choice. As everyone concerned with it reassures, you relax or enjoy life while the fund managers toil and sweat to rake it all into your pockets. Wait till the year’s end and it’s a different story, not to do with how much dividend or appreciation. In fact, you may even wonder if you got some gain that you missed, or missed some gain that you got. You may wonder if the nicest part of your account statement is its paper and print. Heart-breaking to trash it or scribble corrections, too confidential for good origami material, you must shred it if you discard.
It’s ‘Buyer Beware’ from your allotment and on. Often, the first statement is prepared from a scan or copy of your application while the original is in process elsewhere. Be ready for any errors in your name, birth-date joint-holders and importantly, your PAN. Call the fund-house and you are asked to tear off the amendment slip and send it. That will reach the administrator directly; you wish as you fill it, in bold black ink to prevent any copying error. In few cases though admittedly fewer now, you need to educate the baby at the other end that “Joint” is not “Anyone or Survivor” and you wanted the latter. But why make amends for another’s mistake and will it not repeat?
With the share market collapsing last year, every fund-house aggressively pitched a host of liquid products. You relented, choosing Daily Dividend as a smart strategy to time your equity fund investment. You switched some declining equity fund units to liquid funds for safety, making money everyday. Meanwhile, several fund-houses sent a plethora of circulars. An Addendum placed a minimum limit on withdrawals from the liquid fund. Circulars cited mandates to club your holdings to a central Folio. Another one rightly offered a central PIN. You were bombed with huge monthly statements. Your smartness in detecting junk-mail melted as your fingers ached from shredding it. But you forgot that you stopped receiving Fact Sheets and mandatory data that re-sellers were earlier dumping on you when they wanted business.
Beginning a new financial year today, you struggle to square up accounts. Your part-holding switched from equity to liquid fund were recorded under the latter’s Folio, but the switch-back was not: It is now under the same Folio, but in a separate account, not necessarily numbered. So you have three or four Folios for just two holdings! If you set your accounting software to sort transactions by Folio, your reports are a total mess, balance-sheet fragmented and nerves frayed as your CA growls.
At times you wonder why the fund-house is silent – is your money there? Yes, says the investor-service. You have (inadvertently?) ticked the Growth Plan box. Sometimes there’s money in your bank and no clue of its source. Slowly you learn to decipher the bank-book and trace the money to a fund-house, maybe one fund with little luck. Weeks later, you get an advice of a bonus or dividend. Then in an apparent burst of cooperation you receive a KYC Compliance form to assure you of managing all your records and your security but the fine print hints nothing at your privacy.
When fund-houses are working with all authorities to assure full tax compliance, shouldn’t the annual statement be a given? No. Ask for each annual accounts statement, spending a day to call up each fund-house or investor-service, meticulously repeating the names, funds and Folios. You insist that these must include transactions from 31st March the previous year to 1st April this year. Yes, you have received interim statements. Yes, you know they are on-line. No, you don’t want e-mail statements. And you wonder what you gained in making the fund manager sweat for your earning.
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