Clerical Error – CAMS Has Done It Again!
CAMS has done it again. Or rather the chapies who man the Hyderabad / Secunderabad CAMS office have. And this time I have had enough. I will follow the process, write to customer support etc but I will also use their "Email the CEO" thing and keep my fingers crossed.
Last Saturday, March 15 2008, I went to Secunderabad to submit a SIP application for DSPML India T.I.G.E.R Fund. The request was processed and I received my statement today. As is my wont I went through the thing carefully. And immediately noticed that the email address registered against the folio is wrong. Instead of gautam AT satpathy DOT org, the fools have entered gautam AT gsatpathy DOT org!
Last time they miss-spelled my wife's name (nominee) as well as mine. Satpathy became Satpatny. The time before that they made a mistake in my address. C51 became C55. And the time before that they rejected a SIP application because the cheque was postdated even though the process specifically stated that postdated cheques were accepted for SIPs only. They finally accepted the SIP application but that meant another trip to Secunderabad.
Looking back I find that I have visited the Secunderabad CAMS office almost every Saturday since mid January 2008. And more than half of those trips were completely unnecessary. Some fool at CAMS makes a mistake and I pay the price.
As I said, this time I was pissed. I went to their web site looking for the customer support number. The toll free numbers didn't work (no such number). Next I tried the CAMS office at Secunderabad. No answer to either of the two numbers listed on the web page.
Frustrated I clicked the Complaints link and filled out the form. Of course the form submission didn't work.
Click image for full size picture.
I finally decided to post it here. And write to the CEO. Let's see is that will get some response.
Sundaram BNP Paribas Mutual Fund – Online Transactions
Sundaram BNP Paribas Mutual has put up a new web page for online transactions. In it they promise to provide a Direct Payment Gateway for online Mutual Fund Purchases, thereby enabling investors to avail the new No Load option given to direct purchases from the AMC.
A welcome move! I look forward to using the service when it is available.
Till then you will have to put in a hardcopy request the traditional way to avail the No Load option. This means filling out the form, signing a cheque and driving down to the nearest Sundaram or CAMS office.
For Hyderabad the Sundaram office is at:
V V Vintage Boulevard
F.No.203, 2nd Floor,
Raj Bhavan Road,
Somajiguda,
Hyderabad 500082
Ph: 040-23393669/23390815/23397600
Fax: 040 23390815
And the CAMS office at:
102, First Floor
Jade Arcade
Paradise circle
Secunderabad - 500 003
1901-425-2267
040-3918 2471, 73
Fax : 040-3918 2472
Do remember that CAMS is open only till 1.00 p.m. on Saturdays. I think they open for business at 10.00 am.
ICICI's PruTracker – Analyze Scheme Performance
ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund is one of India's leading AMCs. They manage a lot of money (AUM) and are innovative in their product offerings. They also have a good track record of technology use. Their web site was one of the first to offer direct purchase of Mutual Fund units as well as portfolio tracking.
The PruTracker is a good product though it lacks some fundamental features, particularly on the usability side but that is another post 
Of late I have been using their web site a lot and thought I would write about my experience. Late yesterday night I stumbled upon their Analyze Scheme Performance page. This page lets you select a Mutual Fund from ICICI Prudential's stable, give a date range and select a Performance Measure for analysis. Available measures are:
- NAV History
- Dividend History
- Performance Simulator
- Comparison vs Benchmark
I decided to take the Performance Simulator for a spin.
ICICI Prudential FMCG Fund (Click picture for full size image)
What you get is analysis for a single lump sum investment on the start date and an analysis of a monthly SIP between the start and end dates.
Performance Simulator
If you had invested Rs. 1,000.00 on 31-03-1999 (dd/mm/yyyy) in the chosen scheme, then the value would have become Rs. 4,663.00 on 13-02-2008 (dd/mm/yyyy). The corresponding dividend amount paid would have been Rs. 0.00 . Your gain/(loss) would have been Rs. 3,663.00.Systematic Investment Plan (SIP) Simulator
If you had invested Rs. 1,000 in the SIP option of the chosen scheme (on a monthly frequency), starting on Mar-1999 , then your value would have become Rs. 4,11,486.00 by Feb-2008 a return 28.83 % ( CAGR ). Your gain/(loss) would have been Rs. 3,03,486.00 , on a total investment of Rs. 1,08,000.00.
Note that this screen defaults to the launch date of the fund for start date and today's date for the end date.
The information returned is useful to some extent. It tells you how the fund has performed over the time period selected. Note that this is real performance (based on certain assumptions) and not a projection.
I then decided to try out a couple of other ICICI Prudential funds I invest in.
ICICI Prudential Power Fund (Click picture for full size image)
ICICI Prudential Infrastructure Fund (Click picture for full size image)
The Analyze Scheme Performance functionality of the PruTracker is a good way to understand performance and compare similar schemes over the same period of time. For the sake of this article I have used the same three funds as above for performance comparison.
Now, FMCG, Power & Infrastructure are all Equity Diversified funds but have very different objectives, investment styles & portfolio capitalization. As a result you cannot compare their performance against each other.
Caution: Do not use this information to make investment decisions. As noted above these funds are totally different from each other and this is not a valid comparison for investment decision making. This is done here for illustration only.
The first thing is to ensure that the comparison is for the same time period. The Infrastructure fund is the newest (launched Sept 9, 2005) and hence I used that as the start date for all there funds. Left the end date as Feb 13, 2008 (yesterday) for all three funds. See the results below:
ICICI Prudential FMCG Fund - Sept 9, 2005 to Feb 13, 2008 (Click picture for full size image)
ICICI Prudential Power Fund - Sept 9, 2005 to Feb 13, 2008 (Click picture for full size image)
ICICI Infrastructure Fund - Sept 9, 2005 to Feb 13, 2008 (Click picture for full size image)
Results:
| SIP Amount | Total Investment | Value | % Return (CAGR) | |
| ICICI Prudential FMCG Fund | Rs. 1,000/- | Rs. 30,000/- | Rs. 38,629/- | 22.17% |
| ICICI Prudential Power Fund | Rs. 1,000/- | Rs. 30,000/- | Rs. 41,759/- | 29.56% |
| ICICI Prudential Infrastructure Fund | Rs. 1,000/- | Rs. 30,000/- | Rs. 54,126/- | 56.14% |
The results are interesting and when used to compare similar funds can provide good information for investment decision making.
You can also use the Value Research web site to analyze these funds:
Bye Bye Entry Loads!
See the screen shot below for my most eagerly awaited Mutual Fund Account Statement
Notice the NAV & the Price in INR columns. The last transaction dated 14/1/2008 is the sweetest. No Entry Load!
I have already canceled most of my ICICIDirect SIPs. So far I have been able to take care of only a part of my portfolio by creating SIPs offline. The rest will be completedby the end of Jan 2008.
Hip! Hip! Horray! No Entry Load!
ICICIDirect's New Message On Mutual Fund Purchase Page
The new direct sales no-load criteria for Mutual Funds in India came into effect on January 4, 2008. Under this investors are not charged an entry load if they purchase directly from the AMC. The operative word is "direct".
I have seen a lot of discussion on this issue on our internal mailing lists at work and elsewhere on the web. A lot of people seem to be confused about what "direct" means. The word was taken to mean "online" by a large section of people. The experts quickly pointed out that there is a distinction between purchasing mutual fund units on the web site of the AMC vs. buying the same units from a brokerage house like ICICIDirect.
Anyway, I recently logged into the ICICIDirect web site to purchase units in a short term floating rate fund from Chola and I noticed that they have posted a new message on the Mutual Fund Purchase page (see screen shot below).
Notice the paragraph highlighted in blue? It clearly states that they are brokers and hence are entitled to their pound of flesh.
I noticed this on Jan 15, 2008, a good 10 days after the new rules came into force and am not sure when they posted this message. On Jan 4? Or later after their customer support was flooded by mistaken but nevertheless angry customers complaining about the entry loads charged on their purchases?
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