Investor complaints against Mutual funds drop by 40%

NEW DELHI: Mutual funds received close to 40,000 complaints from investors in 2013-14, down 40 per cent from the preceding financial year.

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

As per data put up on the AMFI website, the industry received around 40,000 investor grievances in 2013-14 compared to 66,760 complaints in 2012-13.

According to industry experts, the complaint redressal mechanism has become efficient at most asset management companies with the grievances get resolved within the prescribed turnaround time.

The top five fund houses like HDFC Mutual Fund, ICICI Prudential MF, Reliance MF and UTI Mutual have witnessed complaints falling by 48 per cent during the past fiscal year.

Reliance MF saw the largest drop in investor grievances. They plunged 75 per cent to 3,453 in 2013-14. It was followed by ICICI Prudential MF, which which saw complaints tumbling to 4,353, a decrease of 67 per cent during the same period.

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 Birla Sunlife MF (6,056) in 2013-14 followed by HDFC MF (6,023).

Among the top fund houses, UTI MF saw a climb in its investor grievances to 4,345 from 3,372. Besides, complaints lodged against IDFC surged to 1,644 from 988.

Industry experts believe that large number of complaints are received due to the illegible data provided by investors as well as errors made by investors while filling up application forms.