Reliance Mutual launches ATM card

If you didn't invest in mutual funds because you feared that you would not get your money when you wanted it urgently, well, Reliance Mutual now has a solution. If you want your money deployed in Reliance Regular Savings Fund (RRSF), all you have to do is to swipe a debit card.

Reliance Mutual today launched an "Any Time Money" card which will provide access to investments in its recently launched RRSF. The minimum investment in the scheme is Rs 500 and the fund allows one to choose a pure equity, debt or a hybrid scheme depending on the risk appetite.

"We did an AC Nielson study which revealed that investors were wary of investing in mutual funds because they thought redemptions took as long as 10-15 days and we set out to address this issue through the card initiative," said Amitabh Chaturvedi, CEO, Reliance Capital Asset Management. Currently, fund redemptions take about two days, though mutual funds do offer over the counter cheques for liquid and cash funds.

"This is the first time in Asia, and perhaps the first time in the world, that plastic can be used to access any pure investment product," said Santanu Mukherjee, country manager - South Asia, Visa International Asia Pacific.

Though the ATM facility is currently restricted to only one fund, Chaturvedi is hopeful that the facility could be extended to other schemes following certain regulatory clearances.

Through the Reliance Card, investors can access their money at over 1 million Visa ATMs and can also be used at over 24 million Visa-enabled merchant establishments across the world. Withdrawals will be allowed up to 50 per cent of the money deployed in his fund account or the maximum limit posed by the Visa ATM, whichever is lower, at any given time.

The charges for the service will be in line with the industry standards for debit cards and there will be no additional fund expenses or load, Chaturvedi said.

Reliance Mutual has launched this card in collaboration with Visa, HDFC Bank (since only banks are allowed to issue credit or debit cards under current regulations) and Chennai-based FSS, which is a leader in card transaction processing and switching.

Currently, Reliance Mutual manages about Rs 14,500 crore spread over 23 schemes.