We, at Chennaifocus have never blogged on Finance though it has been a part and parcel of our life.  The interest to get into better finance management came with a real-time experience when the Money I had invested in a normal FD after maturity failed to match the money value it had when the money was invested.  Thanks to a friend, it marked my entry into stock markets and Mutual funds. It was not an easy ride and more often it was a trial and error method and thankfully, I became wiser in investing my money and getting it to work for me.

Not many of us tread this path for the simple fear of losing money in the process.  Unfortunately, in this industry, failures are talked about more than the success instilling insecurity in the minds of people who are yet to test it out.  To be honest, you are losing money when investing in the so called safe methods of investing such as the FDs, Post office schemes and Government bonds simply because the interest it pays you does not beat the inflation and so you end up with the amount much lesser than the value you invested.  To understand the way wealth must be built, we must invest in the capital markets.

We can hear lot of No and never from people and that is quite natural. Capital markets investment requires research, knowledge and understanding of intricate factors to ensure our money is safe. So for an individual, it is almost a Himalayan task. This is where Mutual Funds come in to assist us in investing in Capital markets.  Companies employ experts in finance and capital markets as fund managers and devise mutual fund schemes with exposure to certain type of stocks to cater to the various requirements of a simple investor.  Net, we have many companies offering mutual fund schemes to the investor.

The next question naturally is which company and which mutual fund scheme should I invest in? Till few years back, we approached mutual fund agencies operating offline to advise us on the mutual fund scheme and the company.  We have to get in touch with them to know the performance and fill the forms in person.  It s certainly not a comfort situation because we just do not have control on our investments.

How do we invest?  To address the volatility and to ensure good returns, mutual fund houses have come up with a scheme called Systematic Investment Plan (SIP).  This is the process in which we invest in the stock market through the mutual funds month by month like a recurring deposit but enjoying the returns of the capital market.  In my humble opinion it is better to distribute the investment over a period even if it is lumpsum.

The big question that still remains is – How do we choose the mutual fund scheme to invest?  The advisory service is not an ordinary task given the parameters and research required to ensure our money performs to the expectations.  FundsIndia, the platform for investments in mutual funds  has a  developed an application (Fintech),  Money Mitr to make it easy for an individual with no knowledge of stock markets or mutual funds but with an inclination to build wealth to invest  based on their research and recommendations.

For people like us having a tough experience doing it all by ourselves, this is a wonder product which will make life much easier for us.  We can be termed as an intermediate user  but this platform is a boon for new comers of mutual funds.  By giving a short questionnaire, Money Mitr is able to judge your requirements and provides a list of recommended mutual funds to invest. To the end user, it looks simple but for the FundsIndia research team, it means hours of deep research, analysis to arrive at this list.  So in short, we get expert advice online based on our requirement.

Well, what is the cost of this expert advice is the next question?  It is free as the mutual fund companies pay FundsIndia for our investment from the service charges we pay them.  And for those thinking on other lines, FundsIndia does not endorse or recommend a product for ulterior motives.  We heard it from the Co-founder Mr. Sreekanth Meenakshi  and it was evident that customer satisfaction is paramount  and the pictures below speak volumes of their commitment to the statement.

Robo advisor forms the first level, Human advisor in the next level and Expert advisory review board in the next level ensure focus on customers interests, transparency and open communication.

Opening an account is simple.  Join For free with FundsIndia and the hassle free process would be initiated by the FundsIndia team.   Having an offline portfolio, you can transfer it over to FundsIndia in few simple steps for better control and ease of transaction.  It just takes Rs. 1000 to start a SIP and Rs. 5000 for a lumpsum payment.  As Mr. Srikanth Meenakshi rightly pointed out – We have worked so hard to earn our money, now Let us make our money work harder for us.