Zero-fee financial services can prove to be expensive

It is tempting to use zero-fee services paid for by other, financially less literate clients. But none of us is completely immune to being conned

Diversification and minimising investment costs are the two most important rules of investing. For example, low-fee passive index funds, such as the Nifty50 index fund, are better than higher-fee active mutual funds (MFs). So, superficially it would seem that zero-fee financial services ought to be beneficial. In reality, zero-fee or absurdly-low-fee financial services can ultimately result in very high cost to investors.

This is specific to financial services since the massive benefit or damage is often in the distant future and is usually very difficult to evaluate. But this does not apply to government-mandated services such as mfcentral.com. Here are examples