In an annual review on fund families, we spoke to mutual fund honchos to get their views on some of the pressing issues facing the industry. This is what Jaideep Bhattacharya, the MD of Baroda Pioneer Asset Management Company had to say:
What factors would increase the appetite for investing in mutual funds beyond the top 15 cities?
It is acknowledged that the next evolution in the penetration of mutual funds will come from Tier II and Tier III cities, but reaching out to investors in beyond top 15 towns is not going to be easy. We need more advisors and intermediaries. There is a need for investor education and of course a distribution network to service investors. The industry needs to work with NGOs on various investor education and awareness initiatives in rural India to orient them on the benefits of mutual funds as an investment alternative.
Have the direct plans seen greater retail participation?
One needs to empower the investor and enable him to make choices. In my view, there is a lot of catching up to do as far as financial literacy is concerned. We still need to find a way where one can hand-hold them into these products especially to the retail investors. On the institutional side there has definitely been a large participation via the direct route.
What investor education initiatives has your AMC taken?
Since last two years we have been running programs to educate the youth and students about financial literacy through 'Baroda Pioneer Knowledge Series'. Since the time we started the knowledge series, we have covered more than 35 colleges across the country.
Through the large network of Bank of Baroda we have been conducting several investors' education programs. Through the Baroda Pioneer Knowledge Series to business we done tie-up with Indian Industries Association as the exclusive knowledge partner. This tie-up will help us talk and educate the businessmen in the Association.
We are soon going to launch a series of education series on the internet. Our endeavour will be to try to reach out as many investors' across various mediums.
What's the road ahead for your AMC?
One of our initiatives is to offer treasury products for SMEs. There are many such innovative products which can be offered to different categories of investors based on their risk appetite. This kind of innovation will help mutual funds penetrate in Tier III towns and beyond and thus grow. We are soon going to launch a new and informative website and which will be enabled for online trading.
Brief us about your personal investment philosophy
Time in the market and not timing the market.
Ask Value Research 
New episodes every Friday 
New Process Alert 
Seems like you've uploaded a wrong QR code. Please upload the QR code downloaded from MF Central platform.
