Once upon a time there used to be a ‘ring’ in The Stock Exchange (you dummy it had to be just called this, because the other ones did not exist). The Stock Exchange, Mumbai became the BSE – the Bombay Stock Exchange. The people with the ‘sauda’ book went into the ring and executed the transactions. Quotes were given by jobbers (called taravaniwalas). The daily turnover used to be around Rs. 200 crores – anything higher was considered great. There were 100,000 graduates / undergraduates who worked as jobbers, clerks going into the ring, sub-brokers, share transfer clerks, etc.

Then came technology – and the peopl who brought it said ‘now there is tranparency’ – after all the tech people, ‘educated’ people, etc. had to create new terminology. So out went badla, and in came F&O….and many such changes. Jobs changed hands. Frankly do not know whether the benefits went to the investor or the people who created a big army of financial service sector jobs. It would be intersting to see the ‘wealth created’, the ‘salary paid’ , the turnover tax paid…velocity benefits everybody except the investor (assuming he is still alive!).

Then came the mutual fund industry – ‘wealth management’ they said it was. Again distribution was required, professionals were required – so ‘charges’ were imposed. Some people made an attempt to understand the charges – the super big guys understood and negotiated it. The smaller guys do not understand the charges though there are some who pretend that they do. The amount of expenses that an amc can charge is decided by the amount of money that they can charge as expenses and its own fees. These were fixed when the aum of the biggest amc was under Rs. 1000 crores. Now it is Rs. 100,000 crores. Mr. C B Bhave has an advisory committee which is supposed to benefit the end investor. I have not seen any MD of any company of any industry say “Regulator please reduce my charges so that the end customer can benefit”. Well bureaucrats have some simple illussions in life, do they not.

For a customer who invests Rs. 100,000 a year for 30 years the load that he pays would be Rs. 2000 * 30 = Rs. 60,000. However even if the fund puts in a mediocre performance, the amc charges he pays would be Rs. 250,000 in THE THIRTIETH YEAR ALONE!

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