Sachin Tendulkar, Mithali Raj in Amfi's new commercials to address investors' concerns

Mutual fund industry body Amfi on Tuesday will unveil three television commercial films featuring cricketing legends, Sachin Tendulkar and Mithali Raj, to address investors' concerns related to market volatility, new-age digital trends and unregulated schemes.

These new Television Commercials (TVCs) will make small savers aware of the pitfalls of investing in dubious schemes and new-age trends and also encourage them to shift towards formalised and regulated investment avenues like mutual funds, Association of Mutual Funds in India (Amfi) said in a statement on Monday.

According to a joint study conducted by the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs (IICA) and Investor Education and Protection Fund Authority (IEPFA), analysing 15 scams related to unregulated and illegal schemes, more than 10 crore Indians have been defrauded by top 15 pump-and-dump Ponzi schemes in the last three decades, leading to an average loss of Rs 15.27 lakh per victim. All of them offered unrealistic return on investment which attracted gullible investors.

''We at Amfi want to educate small savers to shift towards a formal and regulated mode of investments, and opt for mutual funds as the preferred investment avenue. Last financial year the mutual fund industry added 1.09 crore new mutual fund investors,'' A Balasubramanian, Chairman, Amfi, said.

''A significant section of retail savers voiced their concerns about continued market volatility in the light of various global geo-political events. We wanted a voice of reason, someone who people trust to address the concern and educate them that it is best to ignore short-term volatility and focus on long-term goals. Hence, we chose Sachin Tendulkar, our brand ambassador for this,'' he added.

Putting into perspective the rationale for the new campaign, N S Venkatesh, Chief Executive, Amfi, said that a lot of young investors were swayed by the returns offered by new-age digital trends, without realising that these were unregulated. Many of them burnt their hands and their hard-earned money.

''Also, for a long time, women investors from semi-urban and rural India have been defrauded by fly-by-night operators who run dubious deposit schemes promising very high returns. We wanted to address both these audiences and warn them of the pitfalls and ask them to choose a very well-regulated investment option like mutual funds,'' he added.

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