IDFC Mutual Fund pioneers SIP registration through UPI AutoPay

HT Bureau

GUWAHATI, April 3: In an industry-first initiative, IDFC Mutual Fund enabled UPI AutoPay, an NPCI initiative, allowing mutual fund investors to use their existing UPI applications to create a mandate for autopay facility for their Systematic Investment Plans (SIPs) investments, encouraging savers to invest regularly through a convenient platform. Investors can initiate the SIP registration on the IDFC Mutual Fund portal.

Highlighting the relevance of UPI AutoPay in the Mutual Fund industry, Vishal Kapoor, CEO, IDFC AMC said, “The mutual fund industry aims to reach 10 crore investors by the end of this decade, to achieve this, it is critical to on-board investors in a hassle-free manner. IDFC Mutual Fund is glad to pioneer UPI AutoPay in the mutual fund industry, aimed at reducing the wait time between registration and commencement of investments via SIP. Additionally, investors can easily pause, modify, or cancel the mandate through the application, as the need arises. This will stop potential investors from losing interest or deferring their investments.”

Notably, the SIP instalment could commence after five calendar days of registering the mandate. In addition, the instruction to debit the investor’s account would be sent on the date of the instalment for the immediate realisation of funds in the scheme account with the NAV of the same day. At present, an investor can invest up to Rs 5000 per transaction using UPI AutoPay.

Nalin Bansal, chief of Corporate and Fintech Relationships and Key Initiatives, NPCI said, “With the integration of UPI AutoPay, IDFC Mutual Fund investors can now set e-mandates within a few seconds, which in turn will completely transform the consumer experience in terms of their SIP payments. UPI AutoPay has the potential to create a valuable user engagement journey and we are confident that the addition of this unique feature is going to be a game-changer in the Mutual Fund space. With UPI AutoPay, we at NPCI are on a mission to offer a streamlined, secure, and automated payments experience to customers.”

Hemant Agrawal, head of Operations and Information Technology, IDFC AMC added, “UPI AutoPay is a convenient way for investors to register their SIP, which outweighs the earlier mechanism of registering standing instructions on the net banking portal. The time between the SIP registration date and commencement of instalments has been reduced from two weeks to a week, making it a time-saving facility. The process is completed within a few minutes with instant confirmation of the registration.”