New Delhi:KFin Technologies and CAMS on Thursday announced the launch of MFCentral, a one-of-its-kind digital solution for enhanced service experience for mutual fund investors.
The platform would make it convenient for investors to transact and avail services while investing in mutual funds (MFs).
The move comes after Sebi in July asked Registrar and Transfer Agents (RTAs) to develop a common platform for the transaction of mutual fund units.
At present, mutual fund investors face delays and have to go through too much paperwork for non-commercial transactions.
Speaking on the launch, Sebi Whole Time Member Madhabi Puri Buch said that the platform is expected to enhance investors' experience with the mutual fund industry through its single window view across all mutual funds.
The platform is conceptualised to go live in three distinct phases, all of which are planned to go live by the end of this calendar year. The first phase, going live today, covers non-commercial transactions (service requests of investors), financial portfolio view, and consolidated account statement amongst other features.
The next two phases will see the launch of a mobility platform, financial transactions, and integration with ecosystem partners for several value-added services.
MFCentral is a collaborative effort of KFin Tech and CAMS, the Mutual Fund Registrar and Transfer Agents in association with industry body AMFI.
For the first time ever in the industry, MFCentral offers digital access to investor lifecycle engagement with the entire MF industry under one roof.
The platform aims to render all conceivable transaction types across the industry participants in a highly automated and digitised manner.
"The platform will bring about simplification in mutual funds services and reduce turnaround times, while providing safe access. Leveraging the power of digital, MFCentral provides a unified gateway for friction-less services across all mutual funds," Anuj Kumar, Managing Director, CAMS said.
In addition to a single portfolio view, the platform strives for the complete fungibility of physical and digital services. It offers investors the added convenience of generating reports on unclaimed payments and raising service requests for non-commercial transactions (digital and scan-based), such as nominee change and address update.
Sreekanth Nadella, CEO, KFin Tech said, "At the heart of the platform lie four fundamental objectives-- step change in ease of doing business for investors, intermediaries and AMCs; lay foundation for a secure, resilient and hyper scale processing infrastructure to meet exponential growth expected in the MF industry; construct an info superhighway to provide best in class analytics to the regulator, AMCs and ecosystem partners and rationalize redundancy in industry's efforts and costs." PTI
