AMFI begins a public awareness campaign to protect investors

The Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI) released three television commercials (TVCs) on Tuesday, featuring cricketers such as Sachin Tendulkar and Mithali Raj, with the goal of raising investor awareness and addressing concerns about market volatility, new-age digital trends, and unregulated schemes. The association has attempted to address the issue of investor portfolio losses and dips during market volatility, which is an inherent feature of stock markets, while also urging investors to focus on their goals and stay engaged rather than redeeming their investments.

Small and retail investors should avoid unregulated schemes that could result in losses, as well as new-age tendencies on social media and other platforms for making investment decisions, according to the industry organization. “At AMFI, we strive to educate small savers about the benefits of investing in mutual funds, which are a formal and regulated way of investment.” The mutual fund sector added 1.09 crore new mutual fund investors in the previous fiscal year. “In light of numerous global geopolitical developments, a considerable portion of retail savers expressed their fears about prolonged market volatility,” said A Balasubramanian, chairman of Amfi.

According to a joint study conducted by the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs (IICA) and the Investor Education and Protection Fund Authority (IEPFA), more than 10 crore Indians have been defrauded by the top 15 pump-and-dump ponzi schemes in the last three decades, with an average loss of Rs 15.27 lakh per victim.

The films, according to N S Venkatesh, CEO of Amfi, are primarily intended to educate women and young investors, particularly those from rural and semi-urban regions, on the need of investing their hard-earned money only in regulated programmes.

“We noticed that many young investors were persuaded by the high returns given by new-age internet trends, despite the fact that they were unregulated.” Many of them burned their hands and their hard-earned money as a result of their actions. Also, for a long time, fly-by-night operators have misled women investors from semi-urban and rural India by running fraudulent deposit schemes promising very high returns,” Venkatesh stated.