RTA expands to Registrar and Transfer agents. RTAs help mutual fund companies with record maintenance. RTAs give investors a single-window reference for all their mutual fund investment-related information. They are private firms and are registered with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi).
RTAs keep track of investors’ transactions in mutual funds. The different types of investor transactions are buying, redeeming, switching in or out, changing bank mandates, updating personal information, and many others. RTAs are equipped with professional and skilled maintenance of investor and AMC data. Investors can find all the transactions under one organisation even if they have invested with multiple AMCs.
Their network is well spread across the country, and with the advent of online services and online investing, you can access the services of the RTAs anywhere in the country.
Examples of R&T agents in India are Computer Age Management Services (CAMS), KFin Technologies Limited, among others.
In terms of services, RTAs share the burden of compliance risk management and sales and marketing with asset management companies. Operations and investor & distribution services are handled mostly by RTAs.
Asset management companies pick an RTA for their record keeping. So which RTA is your folio allotted to depends on the AMC you bought your fund from.
List of Registrar and Transfer agents
There are more than 200 RTAs mentioned on the CDSL website and at least 100 RTAs on NSDL You can find the list of registrar and transfer agents on CDSL and NSDL’s websites. CAMS and KFin Technologies Limited are two most well-known RTAs of India.
Few examples of the role of registrar and transfer agent for investors:
Investment and transactions: RTAs have few portals on their platform that enable investors to transact with mutual fund companies registered with them, invest in NFO.
Statement Generation: An R&T agent generates different types of statements that help you to study your mutual fund portfolio better. CAS or consolidated account statement that gives you a consolidated view of your mutual fund holdings across different AMCs.
Then there are some statements which will be generated specific to mutual fund companies that are registered with the RTA.
For instance, consolidated statements, portfolio valuation statements, transaction details of a single folio, gains statement and a few others.
There are certain service requests you can place with an RTA. For instance:
Mostly all RTAs provide services to AIFs and PMS. Here is a list of the services:
AIF is a privately pooled investment vehicle that functions as a fund. It needed to be established or incorporated in India. AIFs collect funds from sophisticated Indian or foreign investors. AIFs are not governed by Sebi. They are for sophisticated investors because the minimum investment requirement, investment techniques and the risks thereof are high. They are organised in the form of LLPs or limited liability partnerships.
PMS works like a mutual fund but there is a key difference. Portfolio Management Service is a customised mutual fund portfolio of stocks where you own the stocks. In a mutual fund, the units are a mere representation of the stock in the portfolio. PMS is customised to the extent that you decide the weightage of all the stocks.
Summing up
Mutual fund investments are slowly catching the pace and becoming a common practice. With the advent of easy online investing, there is a bigger rush of investor transactions. It might be new investors coming into the industry or increased transactions by existing investors, or it could be the reverse. Nevertheless, the mutual fund industry has a lot more action and is gaining traction with the coming years. In such circumstances, it would get tedious for mutual fund houses to process and maintain this huge database of crores of investors. This is where an RTA steps in where the AMC assigns RTA with this particular job.
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