The proposed fee (Rs100-Rs150 on investments above Rs10,000) might be too little to help agents—who find peddling ULIPs more lucrative

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) plans to impose a transaction fee of Rs100-Rs150 on investments above Rs10,000 in mutual funds to incentivise brokers to sell schemes to investors. This transaction fee is another form of entry load which was banned by the earlier SEBI chief CB Bhave in August 2009. Since then there has been an exodus of nearly Rs20,000 crore from equity funds and a decline of nearly 22 lakh equity-oriented mutual fund accounts.

But could the ban on entry load be a major cause of such a huge outflow? For sure, there have been other factors which led investors to exit from participating in the market. Among some of the other factors that deter retail investors from putting money in the markets are the unexplained volatility in the market, manipulation of IPOs (initial public offerings), poor performance of 40% of funds, several counts of mis-selling, lethargic complaint redressal and lack of financial awareness.

A majority of the population, therefore, finds it safer to keep cash lying in savings accounts or fixed deposits. In 1990-91, 32% of household savings was invested in bank deposits. Now that figure has climbed to 51%.

The regulator has failed to look into the other factors for poor retail participation. Without adequate research, survey or discussions with investors, is SEBI making the same mistake all over again?

The entry load for mutual funds was banned in order to make it fairer. "The investor is more important to the market than the distributor," said Mr Bhave at the announcement of the ban on entry loads. This decision never went down well with the fund industry. Distributors found fund-selling unviable and have been moving out of the business. The penetration of mutual funds is so poor that brokers had little incentive to sell mutual funds. The zero entry load was not motivating enough either for the investor to go in for mutual funds on their own.

SEBI chairman UK Sinha said that the transaction fee paid to distributors would help mutual funds penetrate the retail segment in smaller towns. But would it benefit agents, who, after the ban on entry load, opted for selling products like ULIPs (unit-linked insurance plans) which earned themselves higher commissions? The commission earned on ULIPs is still much higher than the measly Rs100, so will agents actively push mutual funds to customers? Investment in ULIPs start at around Rs10,000, therefore a customer having the finance would be pushed by the agent to go for a ULIP where "he will get a life insurance benefit as well".

This would earn the agent a higher commission and would defeat the purpose of the transaction fee planned to be introduced by the SEBI chief.

What about agents who don't sell ULIPs? During the time of entry load, there were numerous cases of distributor's hard selling mutual funds to hapless investors. The transaction fee may lead to the same practice distributors were following earlier.

The other changes SEBI has proposed-like simplifying the IPO form and providing a new format for opening a trading account that will require the investor to make only a single signature compared to the 50-odd signatures earlier, will allow investors to participate with ease. However, SEBI has overlooked the main problem of getting investors to participate in the market.