MUMBAI:
Unit Linked Insurance Plans (ULIPs) are eating into the share of domestic mutual
funds in the retail fiscal sector and MFs should be set on a degree playing
field with the coverage companies, Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund have said.

While
the regulator had rigorous Know Your Client (KYC) norms for common funds,
insurance companies enjoyed less rigorous norms, Birla Sun Life Asset
Management Company's chief executive officer Mukul Gupta told PTI.

Citing
an example, he said it was compulsory for common finances to cite pan for
investments while this doesn't use to life coverage companies especially for
products like market- linked ULIPs, which were similar to merchandises offered by
the common funds.

This
clearly showed that there was no degree playing field and that the convergence of
such retail fiscal merchandises set the common monetary fund industry at a disadvantage
particularly when the substructure was not as well knit as the insurance
sector.

"Companies
in the coverage concern have got much bigger substructure while the common fund
industry is still very young," Gupta said, adding that "we are raising our
infrastructure in Type B and Degree Centigrade social class cities".

ULIPs
with their promise of market-linked tax returns combined with the double benefit of
insuring life from contingencies fulfilled investing necessitates of an investor along
with protection or coverage necessitates of an coverage seeker.

However,
fund houses did not look to be having so much competition from their sister
concerns as much as from coverage giant Life Insurance Corporation of India
(LIC) and collectively from other fast growth private sector life insurance
companies with much bigger infrastructure.