I am surprised that there is no ‘Health wellness and Fitness Adviser’. I wish I had one. A person to whom I can go if I have a health problem – mental, physical whatever. He/she should have a rudimentary knowledge of pharma, good working knowledge of health – must be a doctor, diet, exercise, yoga, homeopathy, and, ayurveda. Such a person should not have a conflict of interest (so no execution, he can only advise, cannot prescribe. He should be able to tell me ‘your back pain is just bad sitting, running, etc. posture so do some yoga’ – instead of prescribing drugs and pain killers.

Now come to your financial wellness. You are technically supposed to go to a Financial Planner who will tell you what to do. Then you go to an IFA / website and buy mutual fund products. Then an equity broker and buy shares (no you cannot buy it direct!!), go to a post office agent and buy government bonds like ppf, vikas patra etc. General insurance is a different agent of course. Then a CA  to calculate your capital gains and file your IT returns. This is goddamn irritating and boring to say the least.

Now if a Personal Finance expert could act as your family doctor, rather a Financial doctor, and promise you Financial Wellness, what all should I do for you?

• Make sure you write down your set goals
• Help you in asset allocation
• Invest the money / help you borrow for your requirement
• Plod you to register your will -especially if you have complicated assets, business, land, etc.
• Help you in expense control
• Switch loans, repay loans, etc.
• Help in transfer of assets in case of death / divorce etc.

Charge a flat fee, a referral fee, and an aum based fee. The flat fee will be for generic advice, the referral fee for selecting a good fund, or an adviser for specialised advice which I am not capable of giving, and the aum based fee to ensure clientele size. Also the aum based fee will be a very small fraction – say .25% – so that there is no conflict on saying things like ‘redeem mf and buy real estate’ or say sell direct equity and buy mf – an aum based fee will make one indifferent to the asset class.

What say? will work?

ha ha ha..this is like the GP of the old 🙂 now dead and buried. Pavam.