I can claim to be a veteran in the MF industry, but seriously I do not know the internal working of a MF. I know some simple things – they have products (ok these days they like to call it a solution), they have processes, and they need somebody to take it to the end consumer. So they have a process for that.

In that process I have played a small role…and a rather insignificant role – of being a trainer, but I have been there long enough. Just like my blog – nothing great – but it is there everyday for the past 9 years.

Similarly I have done training in many of the old fund houses, but not much in the newer fund houses.

This has meant one thing – almost everybody has heard about me – good, bad, ugly whatever, but they know. So in the process I have met fund managers, CXO, sales heads, IFA, journalists dealing with mutual funds, bloggers, ….connected with the MF industry.

That was the background. Now the story begins.

Many mutual funds have a good reach in the cities (top 30) but not too great a reach beyond that. So most of the training that I have done has been restricted to the top 30 cities, but I have interacted with IFA beyond the 30 cities too.

Many, if not most of them require a lot of training. Face it, the persons who took up (or take up) mutual fund distribution are those who cannot or could not get a decent job paying X amount and hence they have come to this ‘profession’. Surely in the cities the IFA have been spoilt for choice but if you cross Kalyan on the Central side of Mumbai and Vapi on the Western side of Mumbai you realize that the IFA can do with a lot of training.

Yes some fund houses – I will not name them – have done some work in that field, but frankly only about 10% of their requirement is met. Training (bar a few) becomes more an exercise in PR and there is a lot of effort in making sure that the food is good, some alcohol is organized,…and ha…there was training too. In this background it feels very nice to know that we did a 3 day program for a big asset management company – where we trained the journos. It was a massive exercise and paid off well in terms of PR for the amc. Of course they did not repeat it. Of course no other amc repeated it. It happend 11 years ago. One Life insurance company copied it, but the amc did not.

Math for IFA: did 2 exercises, and then it died.

BCP and Retirement Planning through SIP: FOR the IFA’s retirement. When I suggested this to a fund house, they said that they had done it. I felt like puking – the guy had NO IDEA WHAT I was talking about. All 5 fund houses that I broached this topic were excited, but as usual nothing happened. The guy taking the training call has sadly never interacted with the Ifa. CEO thinks (always) it is a great idea, but it gets scuttled at the lower level. I seriously do not know whether ‘great idea let’s make it work’ is a signal to the training person from the CEO “look I cannot say no to Subra so beat around the bush …till he falls away uninterested.”

Luckily my earlier profession help me build a portfolio and do such posts and say “Kalli valli” to the amcs.