Unit Trust of India (UTI) is set to offer across-the-board repurchase facility for its unitholders. The offer will be extended from all the offices of the trust, and is expected to be introduced from July 1.
The trust is also planning to introduce across-the-board sale of units. However, this cannot be done under the present mode of cheque-clearing. The banking system would have to be made electronic before this actually happens.
UTI would also be extending the facility of transfer of accounts from existing schemes to new ones, and consolidation of accounts to its unitholders.
While UTI has about 5 crore unitholder accounts (with US-64 contributing 2 crore accounts), many of the unitholders have multiple accounts in the same scheme. The plan to consolidate unitholder accounts would do away with the problem faced by unitholders on account of multiple accounts, lessen the workload on UTI, and also help the trust service unitholders in a better manner.
The entire process of co-ordination between the centres would be through a VSAT network, and the trust is in the process of acquiring 75 VSAT terminals. UTI would be inter-linking 51 branch offices, four zonal offices and 20 registrar sites spread across the country via VSATs.
The entire exercise, with an estimated cost around Rs 100 crore, is expected to be complete by July.
Among the schemes that would be put in the first tranche of across-the-board dealings would be US-64, Mastergain (which has about 35 lakh accounts), Masterplus (with 17 lakh unitholding accounts) and Mastershare consisting of about 8 lakh accounts.
The project is being conducted through UTIs technological upgradation programme (TUP) which is set to introduce an Unix-based Oracle platform for all the UTI centres.
"The idea is to provide superior service to investors by way of direct linkage and continuous interface between our centres," says P J Nayak, executive trustee, UTI. He explained that computer screens would flash unitholders records, and every investor query would be attended to within 48 hours.
The service provider, HCL-Comnet, would be also extending voice-mail facility along with computer linkage.
The country's largest mutual fund, which currently accounts for approximately 5 crore unit holding accounts, is aiming at slashing down investor servicing time by over 50 per cent within this year.
TUP is in the final stages of implementation with close to Rs. 80 crore already spent on the project.
Says A K Thakur, executive director, operations and systems, UTI, "We are primarily looking at achieving three things through this programe - bringing about uniform systems and procedures throughout the country, provide instant information using technology, and finally offer a one-window service across the country".
