Expense Account, Mint
Clearly many people out there are keen to see the distribution industry in India mature. The response to my last week’s column that predicted the shape of the industry over the next few years got people mailing and calling. One mail and one conversation need a wider discussion. Ganesh Sankaran of LatentView, a consultancy firm, wrote in to say that he agreed that banks would play a bigger role in the distribution game, where they use their reach and customer bond to sell products. He says it is already happening in life insurance, where it works because consumers need one long-term product. “However, in the case of mutual funds, most customers would tend to invest in more than one fund house. Will the banks be willing to sell products across fund houses? I don’t think so. I feel pure-play distribution houses, online trading firms or the mutual funds themselves may play a bigger role in the distribution,” he wrote in an email.