Direct Mutual Fund Sites in India – 2020 List
TLDR: A complete list of all direct mutual fund sites in India as of Jan 2020. And some FAQs on what they are.
What are direct mutual funds anyway?
Simply put, they’re a no-broker way to invest in mutual funds. You invest directly with the company running the mutual fund. These companies are called AMCs – short for Asset Management Companies.
Why should I care?
Well, since no brokers or middlemen are involved, your mutual fund earns you more. Middlemen(distributors) get both upfront and trailing commissions. This is money which could’ve belonged to you, but is going to a middlemen instead.
The deceptively named ‘Regular’ funds have middlemen involved. Direct funds don’t.
How much am I losing by not investing in Direct funds?
Far more than you can ever imagine. Middlemen often don’t disclose the fact that they receive commissions. When they do, they try to make it seem inconsequential. You can know exactly how much you’re losing, by reading this post here.
What are Direct Fund mutual fund sites(or platforms)?
They allow you to, or specifically provide access to only Direct plans of mutual funds.
Why do most such direct mutual fund sites charge a fee?
Because they need to stay in business. Most free websites allow you to invest for free because they’re dipping into your wealth, by getting commissions. Most direct mutual fund sites charge a fixed annual fee of sorts because most often, it’s their only source of revenue.
What’s a good enough fee to pay for such sites?
There was an entire column in the table below which listed pricing for each of these sites. But I chose to delete it. Why?
Because being honest, whatever you pay for any of these would be far lesser than what you’d lose by not investing in direct mutual funds. Again, read this to see how much you lose by investing in ‘regular’ funds and by falling for those ads which allow you to invest for free.
Is there a possible downside of using them?
Truth be told, yes. Since often, their primary source of revenue is from annual fees, the chances of them running out of business are rather high. They can ofcourse compensate this by selling some commission-based products like Gold coins and such. But there is always a risk that they go belly up if people in India continue to prefer whatever is free over whatever is fair.
Please don’t fall for free. A fee is fair. Because as someone said, when you get a product for free, it’s only because YOU are the product. When you don’t pay a fee, such profit-based companies are just making money off you in ways you don’t realize.
The one direct mutual fund site which will perhaps always be free, and for good reason, is MF Utilities. It’s run by a consortium of mutual funds in India.
Which platform do I personally use?
Personally, I prefer to only use the AMC’s native platforms. For one, I know that they’ll always be free. Two, I encountered an issue with MFutilities once, because it listed a fund which it wasn’t servicing. It was a liquid fund in which I was planning to park a large sum of money. Money was deducted from the bank, but units weren’t allotted for several days. When I finally got in touch with their support, they simply apologized and returned my capital. And I did end up losing interest for a week.
List of Direct Mutual Fund Sites
Disclaimer: There were quite a few more sites operating last year, but they seem to have gone belly up. I’ve only listed the ones which are operational as of Jan 2020. If you come across a site which is missing, do write in so it can be included.
Site NameLink
KuveraKuvera
ETMoneyETMoney
UnovestUnovest
GoalwiseGoalwise
GrowwGroww
Coin by ZerodhaZerodha
Paytm MoneyPaytm Money
PiggyPiggy
CAMSmyCAMS
KarvyKarvy Mutual Funds
MF UtilitiesMF Utilities/MFU Online
InveztaInvezta
MoneyfrontMoneyfront
JamaJama
MymoneysageMy Money Sage
Mobikwik MoneyMobiKwik Money
WealthTrustWealthtrust
My Way WealthMywaywealth
Oro WealthOro Wealth
MoneyfrontMoneyfront
5paisa5paisa
GulaqGulaq
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