PAN-like number to be must for MF investors

Come 2007, individuals as well as corporates investing Rs 50,000 and more in single mutual fund scheme would be required to apply for mutual fund investors number, as prescribed by the know your client norms of the Securities and Exchanges Board of India.

In an announcement made in Mumbai on Wednesday, Association of Mutual Funds in India chairman A P Kurian said investors who wished to invest more than Rs 50,000 in any single mutual fund scheme in one installment would have to provide original or attested true copies of photograph, proof of identity, address proof and PAN card, on verification of which MIN would be allotted.

"Investors have to provide KYC documents and information only once to obtain the MIN, quoting which they could invest in the schemes of all mutual funds without necessity to submit the KYC documents every time they invest. Amfi came into picture to initiate this purpose, where investor would get this identification number without witnessing any hassles," Kurian said.

CDSL Ventures, a Central Depository Services subsidiary, has been given the task of document verification, MIN allocation and data preservation.

Fund houses, which earlier came out with proposals to set up their own infrastrucutre for this purpose, will now be sharing the cost of MIN allocation, as the subscriber would not be bearing the cost.

"In the initial stages, AMCs would be paying for the MIN allocation. We expect to allocate around 8-10 lakh MINs by first six months of 2008," Cyrus Khambata, chief executive officer, CVL, said.

However, as per the present guidelines, investments over Rs 50,000, done prior to December 31 this year, would not require this identification.

In another case, if an investor puts is an amount, which is slightly lower than this limit into different schemes instead of one, he would also be not required to apply for the MIN.

Asked about this, Kurian said, "To begin with, we are introducing this limit, which matches the PAN card eligibility criteria. As and when we would fulfill the targets, we could lower this and widen the scope of this identifying more investors." He also clarified that the limit would be same for retail as well as institutional investors.

Amfi, along with MFs, would be making the MIN forms available at various branches of AMCs, registrars and selected banks where the investor could avail the MIN immediately on submission and verification of the documents.

The application form would also be available on Amfi website as well as websites of all mutual funds. The attestation should be done by a Notary, Gazetted Officer or manager of a scheduled bank.