In the addtion to said you may check following points before choosing an Investment broker or on line platform.
A Checklist on Selecting the Investment Broker/Agent/Executor
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Investment broker need to provide you a consolidated report periodically. He should be able to give you different type of reports like absolute return report, annualized return report, profit/loss report, dividend report, transaction report, Investment Summary report. You may need detailed report at times and you need a summarized report at times. You may want to check the total dividend received for a particular period by requesting a dividend report. Your auditor may request a report for the total investments made during the year. Before engaging him, ask for these kinds of different types of dummy/sample reports.
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The broker need to send you a capital gain report comprising both short term and long term capital gains. You may need this during the advance tax payment time and at the time of filing the income tax returns.
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If the broker provides an online access to your investment portfolio, then you should have provision in your online access to generate these reports.
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All these services, the broker need to provide you without any cost as he is getting paid by the mutual fund companies in the form of commission. Also, we are looking from him, only transaction facilitation not investment advice.
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Some brokers seek for power of attorney from their clients for easy transaction facilitation. You could have read about the Big Names in the financial services industry have created problems for their customers with this power of attorney. So avoiding power of attorney and having the control on your side, keeps you on the safer side.
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If you are engaging an investment executor having a wide network such as banks, you need to know your Relationship manager will be changed frequently. So it is better to know at least 3 persons from your broker firm. Interact with them at least once in a quarter.
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Income tax Scrutiny: income tax dept at times may ask you about the details/sources for some investments. You could have made an investment 6 year back and withdrawn the same 3 years back and reinvested the redemption proceeds in another scheme. Your broker must be able to give you this past history even after 6 years. He should maintain records even for the closed investments. This is something which is very important for a HNI client.
Regards,
Ramalingam K, MBA,CFP
Chief Financial Planner,
HOLISTIC INVESTMENT PLANNER PRIVATE LIMITED.
www.holisticinvestment.in