AMFI conducted a strong awareness campaign “Mutual funds Sahi hai”, that advocates mutual funds as the ‘right choice’ for investment. As a result, there is a steep rise in the volume of direct investors in the market. The latest updates by AMFI report that the AUM of the industry contributed by retail investors have increased from ₹8.5 trillion to ₹21.6 trillion since the launch of the campaign in March 2017. It is a rise of ~2.5x with an increase in the share of retail investors out of total AUM from 45.9 % to 55.4 %. Still, the Indian mutual funds industry is way smaller than many developed countries. Black Rock Funds is single-headedly managing assets worth US$ 10 trillion, which is much larger than the overall AUM of the Indian MF industry.

It is also noticeable that there are not more than 60,000 mutual fund distributors in India despite substantial growth in the industry. The segment of Mutual fund distribution in India is outrageously under-penetrated where only one MFD is available to over 17,000 potential investors.

Such data and statistics signal greater opportunity for Indian Mutual Fund Distributors. They just have to make themselves competent enough by making a potential connection with the technology.

The incorporation of technology in the business should gradually optimize the back-end infrastructure for wealth management. And it will help in reducing the overall time of service delivery or circulation of financial advisory. Mutual fund software should reduce the time that an MFD might do over a few days. The time in terms of onboarding clients, understanding their goals and requirements, reviewing their existing portfolios, segmenting them, and finally making recommendations should be reduced to minutes using good mutual fund software.

Now, comes the primary question as suggested by the title also as “how to choose the best Mutual Fund Software in India”. So while purchasing MF software, an MFD must consider the following features:

1. Time Saver

The basic purpose of a machine or software is to reduce manual efforts and save time. In the 21^st century time is money and if an MFD wastes its precious time in making manual reports, conducting calculations, and analyzing portfolios using excel, then it will always lie behind. Therefore, an MFD should not only adopt good technology but adopt proficient software that can manage, maintain and automate a large chunk of the day-to-day business of MFDs. Use this time on more productive tasks and make quality interactions with your clients.

2. Goal Tracker

There is a large number of DIY people who try to do everything themselves using a six-inch screen and make mistakes, we generally call them direct retail investors. They lack appropriate goals, discipline, education, and knowledge. Therefore, an MFD is required to understand the future goals of investors and make them invest in a disciplined way. On the basis of the investor’s goals and future requirements, the software should be able to project the overall required corpus for the goal and the money that should be periodically (monthly) invested in the most visually pleasing way. Goal tracking through software will allow you to visualize your progress and your contribution toward your goals. Also, since goals change with time, hence the software must be flexible enough to make changes accordingly.

3. Multiple ARN Handler

Good MF software must be able to manage multiple ARNs simultaneously. A growing MFD or wealth manager must be managing various branches and working with multiple Sub- brokers. Therefore, the software should work as the Handling Manager that can provide an appropriate and proper and absolute structure of the business hierarchy.