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We've heard of the Maha Kumbh and the Kumbh Mela, but what is the Nivesh Maha Kumbh?
K S Rao: Scale is always the goal of BSLAMC in Out Reach Programs. We intend to reach out to larger section of society to educate, engage and empower. Educated customer is an empowered customer and empowered customer is the more protected investor.
Nivesh Maha Khumb is something unique which we created, and will be rolling out pan India shortly. Last year, when we completed 1000 investor education programs and we were discussing with our CEO Mr. Bala, he said this is fantastic, but why not take on another challenge. We've done 1000 programs - now how about doing a program with 1000 investors?
When we were travelling with Mr. Bala that evening for a distribution meet, we saw many hoardings of Nasik Maha Kumbh. There was a tag line which said, "Take a dip during the Maha Kumbh and purify your soul". We instantly decided to call our investor programs for 1000 people as the "Nivesh Maha Kumbh", with a tag line, "Understand DIP at the Nivesh Maha Kumbh and purify your financial lives". DIP here stands for the 3 most relevant concepts that define successful investing - D.( Delayed gratification), I. (Inflation) and P.(Power of compounding). Any investor who understands DIP, will surely purify his financial life from all the emotions that make him take inappropriate financial decisions.
On 21st November, we had our first Nivesh Maha Kumbh at Jabalpur, with over 1100 investors participating in it. We had a regional media partner and worked closely with the Jabalpur IFA association, and had 65 IFAs actively participating in this event. This has helped us to bring in a good mix of new investors and existing mutual fund investors.
Nivesh Maha kumbh is a platform not only to create awareness on Mutual Funds but also an understanding of holistic life planning which empowers to cultivate healthy and wealthy habits. Wealthy habits were tackled through DIP. Dr. Pramod Tripathi , ( Prominent doctor who is known for treating diabetes with changing the way we eat) spoke on the necessity of healthy habits.
In Nivesh Maha Kumbh, the format is different. Instead of presentations, we perform skits which connect with the audience and helps deliver the message effectively. We have different stalls - called Life Goal planning stall, liquid stall, equity stall, hybrids stall etc. Participants see the skit which educates them on the basics required to become a successful investor, then they visit the planning stall, which showcases how a goal based approach can help them meet their financial obligations. From there on, they go to different stalls - liquid stall, equity stall etc, which showcase the role of each asset class in their financial lives. There are games which help drive the message, there are videos in vernacular language to help communicate effectively.
Apart from educating and empowering investors, the IFAs who participated in the event informed us that there was a significant increase in enquiries as well as business, after this event. Jabalpur IFA Association profusely thanked and felicitated Mr. Bala for making Jabalpur as starting point for Nivesh Maha Kumbh. We are now taking Nivesh Maha Kumbh across the country. Our next one will be in Patna in January and Belgaum in February 2016. We intend to reach out all major towns beyond metros through our newly created format - NIVESH MAHA KUMBH, which serves twin objective to spread the awareness on Mutual Funds and helps channel partners to expand their business.
WF: Nivesh Maha Kumbh is another great innovation from you and your team! What are some of the other investor education and distributor development initiatives that you have been busy with?
K S Rao: We have completed 1000 investor education programs in the first 9 months of this financial year. This year, we have completed in 9 months what we achieved in 12 last year. We are developing a robust digital e-learning platform for investor education to widen the reach and complement our significant volume of on-ground activities. We are targeting launch in April 2016.
We are partnering with NISM on few of the unique financial literacy initiatives such as National Financial literacy certification for High School Students and National Financial Quiz 2016 for college students . Both these initiatives together are expected to reach out to over 1,00,000 students.
Last time we spoke, I talked about Pehla Kadam, our joint initiative with CNBC. We have now expanded this with Money Gurukul, our joint initiative with Economic Times. Partnering regional and national media in investor education remains a key priority for us.
We are delighted to have trained & awarded CFGP certificates (in association with American Academy of Financial Management , India) to over 3600 IFAs in 2015. Our mission in 2016 is to have 10,000 CFGP (Chartered Financial Goal Planning) certified IFAs. We are going to introduce monthly webinars for CFGP certified IFAs, as a continuing education initiative, and will be happy to share this on WF Saturday School as well. This will be a case study approach, to give it a practical edge. To supplement CFGP, we have created a book - Life Goal Planning and introduced a Goal planning calculator app, which can be downloaded from the Google play store.
Click Here to download the Birla Sun Life MF Goal Planning Calculator |
One of our more recent programs - IFA (Internet, Facebook & Apps) for an IFA - a social media training program for IFAs - has been very well received with over 5000 IFAs across 50 locations benefiting from this program. We have now launched another distributor training program called "Selling through Story telling", which is also going down very well with participating distributors.
Last time, I spoke about Samruddhi - our education initiative in Shatabdi trains. This initiative is also doing well and we are expanding its coverage to the Mumbai-Ahmedabad and Mysore-Chennai Shatabdi trains. Our Samruddhi magazine is also going vernacular, as we expand the scope to different parts of the country. Right now, we are connecting with about 4000 train passengers every day through this initiative. Our goal is to connect with 10,000 passengers each day, and spread investor education in a big way through this initiative. Samruddhi will also be soon available on a digital platform - but let me discuss more about this after we launch it in the coming months.
It's always our endeavor to support investors with unique learning initiatives which would help them to reach their summit. Our mission is to create a large pool of informed investors and empowered channel partners.
I take this opportunity to thank all our channel partners for their continued support to Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund & wish every one of you a very happy and prosperous new year.
WF: Heartiest congratulations for your sustained efforts at touching so many financial lives through so many innovative ways. You and your team are doing a fantastic job in realizing your mission of creating informed investors and empowered distributors.
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