MF houses’ investor complaints drop 7% to 16,425 in FY16

 These complaints pertain to data corrections in investor details and non-updation of changes about address, PAN (Permanent Account Number) details and nomination, among others.

According to industry experts, the complaint redressal mechanism has become efficient at most asset management firms with the grievances getting resolved within the prescribed turnaround time. As per data on the Association of Mutual Funds of India (AMFI) website, the top 10 mutual fund houses received 16,425 investor grievances in 2015-16 compared with 17,712 complaints in the preceding fiscal.

The folio base or investor accounts grew to 3.67 crore from 3.35 crore during the same period. Folios are numbers designated to individual investor accounts, though one investor can have multiple folios. Among the top 10 fund houses, HDFC MF saw the biggest drop in investor grievances last fiscal, with complaints plunging by 39 per cent to 3,763 followed by UTI MF, which saw complaints tumbling to 2,364, a slump of 38 per cent. Reliance MF witnessed 37 per cent decline in the number of complaints at 1,454, while Kotak MF fell by 32 per cent to 173.

 "Efficient and effective use of technology -- an important part of our focus on customer centricity -- has helped us eliminate routine complaints by investors who are now able to resolve these by using our mobile app or through internet," Reliance MF Chief Executive Sundeep Sikka said.

"We will further strengthen these interfaces to provide ease for our investors," he added. Sebi first took note of rising investor complaints in mutual funds in 2011 and hauled up fund houses for not taking serious note of these grievances. In absolute terms, the highest number of investor complaints were recorded against Franklin Templeton MF (5,529) in 2015-16 followed by ICICI Prudential MF (4,564), HDFC MF (3,763), UTI MF (2,364) and SBI MF (1,582).