Insights

Introducing – The FundsIndia Advisory Review Board

April 22, 2015 . Srikanth Meenakshi

logo_arbI am happy and proud to announce the launch of the FundsIndia Advisory Review Board (ARB), a mechanism by which FundsIndia’s customers can seek a review and a second-opinion about the advice they’ve received from a FundsIndia advisor.

This service is available right away to all FundsIndia investors, and is free of cost.

What is it?

The FundsIndia ARB is a small group of senior people in FundsIndia who have many years of experience counseling customers and building investment portfolios for varying needs. They will bring their expertise and experience to review advisory recommendations made to customers, and either explain the guidance provided, or modify it, if required.

The FundsIndia ARB will constitute three people and will meet regularly. One of the people will be the Head of the Advisory group in FundsIndia. A representative from the Mutual Fund Research team will be the second person, and a person from the management will be the third person.

Whenever an advisory recommendation is taken for review, the Advisor who provided the recommendation will also be a part of the group (to explain his/her interaction with the customer and to provide the rationale behind the recommendation). The ARB might also bring in the investor into the discussion, as needed, to obtain any additional information that might be required.

Why are we doing this?

Since inception, we have always strived to provide free, high-quality advisory services to our customers. As we grow, it is important that we put in place processes and mechanisms that will ensure that we maintain the quality of advice that we provide. The FundsIndia ARB is a formal process to ensure that our customers are convinced that the advice they receive is well considered and appropriate for them.

Our model of providing advisory services from one central location provides us with the first point of quality control in terms of the funds we recommend, and portfolios we design for specific needs, as well as uniformity in the quality of advisory service we provide.

However, we have plans to grow further and provide good advice, in a scalable manner, to a lot more people than we do today. We would NEVER want to see the quality of our advisory services get diluted by our growth.

The FundsIndia ARB provides us an important safeguard in this regard by ensuring we offer only top notch advisory service, irrespective of our size. We see the FundsIndia ARB as reinforcing this commitment to our customers.

How can customers write to the ARB?

This part is very simple. Any customer who would like an advice they received from a FundsIndia Advisor to be reviewed by the ARB would simply have to write to arb@fundsindia.com. The customer would have to enclose the advice they received and any specific questions or comments that they may have.

The ARB would meet on a regular basis. However, if a review is required urgently, the customer can specify that, and we can expedite in such cases.

Our motto, from day one of starting this company, has been – ‘Enriching India, one investor at a time’. As we grow, we don’t want to lose sight of the fact that every investor is separately, individually, important for us. We see the FundsIndia ARB as reinforcing this commitment to our customers.

Happy investing!

18 thoughts on “Introducing – The FundsIndia Advisory Review Board

  1. Hello,

    Really appreciate your efforts to make us feel our investments are watched and guided regularly.

    Maulik

  2. Hello,

    I really appreciate your efforts in making us feel that our investments are well guided and analyzed regularly.

    Maulik

  3. Aren’t you concerned that now every review might come to ARB.. An investor might think that since this is free there is no harm in getting a second opinion..

    Also doesn’t this look like you introduced ARB because u r getting complaints on the recommendations provided by your advisors and you want to keep them in check?

    These are just 2 things which came in MY mind. Maybe I am reading the entire thing wrong..

    1. Anshuk,

      Thanks for the comment.

      1. We too have some concerns about volume, but we’ll see how it goes. So far, we’ve received three requests for reviews. Our belief is if the advisor communicates the rationale for the advice provided sufficiently, such requests would not arise. So, this initiative will also help improve our advisory communications, we believe.

      2. Not at all. Honestly, at our current size, we don’t need the ARB since we can manage the quality internally quite well. However, we don’t want to be in a situation where we have to do it for reasons that you have indicated.

      Thanks,

      Srikanth

  4. Hello,

    Thanks for introducing ARB, hope it gives enough knowledge & courage to the investor to take the right decision at the right time.

    Thanks
    Bharath

  5. I would like to know how an advisor is allocated to an investor? Is it based on the amount an investor invests? If not, what are the various parameters through which an investor is allocated to say X or Y advisor?

    Also if an Advisor is allocated more number of investors than they can handle? Then the quality of their suggestion would also drop. How do you keep check on the quality of suggestions.

    1. Hello Ashfaaq,

      Sorry about the delayed reply to this comment.

      We use different criteria to allocate clients to advisors. We do have some segregation based on the AUM (regular vs HNI etc), but we also use other parameters such as language, region, NRI or not etc to decide which advisor will best be able to guide a client. We have a systemic process to determine this.

      We also ensure that advisors are not allotted more number of clients than they can handle. We grow the team (hire more advisors) constantly to ensure that we have adequate advisor-client ratio in our system.

      thanks,

      Srikanth

  6. Hello,

    I really appreciate your efforts in making us feel that our investments are well guided and analyzed regularly.

    Maulik

  7. I would like to know how an advisor is allocated to an investor? Is it based on the amount an investor invests? If not, what are the various parameters through which an investor is allocated to say X or Y advisor?

    Also if an Advisor is allocated more number of investors than they can handle? Then the quality of their suggestion would also drop. How do you keep check on the quality of suggestions.

    1. Hello Ashfaaq,

      Sorry about the delayed reply to this comment.

      We use different criteria to allocate clients to advisors. We do have some segregation based on the AUM (regular vs HNI etc), but we also use other parameters such as language, region, NRI or not etc to decide which advisor will best be able to guide a client. We have a systemic process to determine this.

      We also ensure that advisors are not allotted more number of clients than they can handle. We grow the team (hire more advisors) constantly to ensure that we have adequate advisor-client ratio in our system.

      thanks,

      Srikanth

  8. Hello,

    Thanks for introducing ARB, hope it gives enough knowledge & courage to the investor to take the right decision at the right time.

    Thanks
    Bharath

  9. Aren’t you concerned that now every review might come to ARB.. An investor might think that since this is free there is no harm in getting a second opinion..

    Also doesn’t this look like you introduced ARB because u r getting complaints on the recommendations provided by your advisors and you want to keep them in check?

    These are just 2 things which came in MY mind. Maybe I am reading the entire thing wrong..

    1. Anshuk,

      Thanks for the comment.

      1. We too have some concerns about volume, but we’ll see how it goes. So far, we’ve received three requests for reviews. Our belief is if the advisor communicates the rationale for the advice provided sufficiently, such requests would not arise. So, this initiative will also help improve our advisory communications, we believe.

      2. Not at all. Honestly, at our current size, we don’t need the ARB since we can manage the quality internally quite well. However, we don’t want to be in a situation where we have to do it for reasons that you have indicated.

      Thanks,

      Srikanth

  10. Hello,

    Really appreciate your efforts to make us feel our investments are watched and guided regularly.

    Maulik

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.