Origins of AMFI
- Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI) is a non-profit industry body of the asset management companies (AMCs) of all Mutual Funds in India that are registered with Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).
- AMFI was incorporated on August 22, 1995 under section 25 of the Companies Act, 1956 (corresponding Section 8 of the new Companies Act, 2013), as a non-profit organisation.
- AMFI is dedicated to developing the Indian Mutual Fund industry on professional, healthy and ethical lines, and to enhance and maintain standards in all areas in the best interest of investors and other stake holders.
Role of AMFI
- The role of AMFI, inter-alia, is to
- (i) address the issues and challenges concerning the mutual fund industry to facilitate ease of doing business for its members, unitholders and various stakeholders;
- (ii) liaison / advocacy with the SEBI/ Reserve bank of India, Government of India etc. with regard to the issues and policy matters concerning the mutual fund industry;
- (iii) introduce best practices and standardised operational guidelines for being uniformly followed by all AMCs
- (iv) disseminate important information pertaining to mutual funds on AMFI’s website, such as displaying daily NAVs of all MF schemes , performance of all MF Schemes and other useful and informational data pertaining to MF Industry; and
- (v) creating awareness about mutual funds through mass media.
- AMFI functions under the broad guidance of the AMFI Board, comprising of fifteen Directors, elected from various categories of AMCs and operates on a co-operative model with the help of various standing committees and working groups.
- AMFI has evolved an effective approach for introducing best practices using collective knowledge and expertise of members on various subjects pertaining to the Mutual Fund Industry by setting up various standing committees, namely,
- (i) Financial Literacy Committee;
- (ii) Operations & Compliance Committee
- (iii) Risk Committee;
- (iv) Committee on Certified Distributors (ARN Committee;
- (v) Equity CIOs Committee;
- (vi) Valuation Committee (comprising fixed income CIOs); and
- (vii) ETF Committee.
- Since the time it was established, AMFI has evolved as a highly respected representative body of the MF industry, owing to active involvement of its members and has strived towards introducing several best practices across various areas, such as disclosures, operations and risk management, valuation of securities, streamlining the customer service and investor protection and communication, to be uniformly followed by all its members in the best interest of the investors.
- AMFI is a member of the International Investment Funds Association (IIFA), a federation of national investment fund associations of various countries around the world. The current IIFA membership comprises 38 national associations and 2 regional associations.
Certification:
- As per SEBI MF regulations, all mutual fund agents/ distributors need to be registered with AMFI and obtain AMFI Registration number (ARN). They also must abide by the AMFI Code of Conduct for mutual fund distributors. In short, AMFI is acts as the registering (licensing) body for mutual fund distributors in India by virtue of the responsibility delegated to it by SEBI.
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