Now, Fund Houses Also Selling PAN Cards

Fund houses are now selling PAN cards along with Mutual Funds to rope in investors turned off by mandatory PAN requirements. They go together now. The PAN card and the NFO application. And fund houses are selling them together. This month, SEBI made a PAN card or application proof mandatory for Mutual Fund investments. Since then, retail investments have fallen 40 to 50%. Fund houses like Reliance, SBI, JM Financial and others have begun to provide customers with PAN card application forms along with
Mutual Fund forms. They have also tied up with Karvy, UTI Securities and Bajaj Capital to speed up the process. Surajit Mishra, Senior Vice President, Bajaj Capital said, "The AMCs have taken the initiative to partner with us to facilitate many investors to come to our branches wherever they are facing a query of PAN card. We offer them the entire service of filling up the applications, providing the form 49a, the appropriate ticket which is to be filed with the form and depositing with the concerned authority for processing."Reliance Mutual Funds, India's largest fund house, had retail investments fall by half since July 2 when SEBI issued the ruling. It's now hiring photographers and PAN card agents. That's at no cost to the customer.