Know Your Client (Kyc) Application Form (For: Fill & Download for Free

I shall take up the question related to investing. I have personally found the investment in Equity Mutual Funds as most rewarding.There are a number of good options for this. But you need to first do KYCWhat is KYC?KYC is an acronym for "Know Your Customer". SEBI has prescribed certain requirements relating to KYC norms for Financial Institutions including Mutual Funds to 'know' their clients.This entails In-Person Verification (IPV), verification of identity and address, financial status, occupation and such other personal information.What should the investor do?Investors can submit the common KYC Application Form along with all necessary documents as prescribed with any SEBI registered intermediaries including mutual funds like Birla Sun Life Asset Management Company Limited. KRA shall send a letter to the investor within 10 working days confirming the details thereof.Apart from KYC, it is mandatory for intermediaries including mutual funds to carry out In-Person Verification (IPV) of all its new investors.TO SUMMARIZE:Step 1 Download and Fill-up the revised KYC form (effective January 01, 2012). Please Click here for (New) KYC FormStep 2 Attach the following documents:For Individuals and Non-Individuals:Documents evidencing Proof of Identity and Proof of Address (as mentioned in the revised KYC Application Form)Step 3 In-Person Verification (IPV):Complete IPV from any of the following:Any SEBI registered intermediary (including Birla Sun Life Asset Management Company Limited)Scheduled Commercial Banks (in case of any applications received directly)Step 4 Submit the KYC form along with necessary documents at the nearest Investor Services centre or any other intermediaries of KRA's as mandated by SEBI. Upon receipt and verification of the above documents, a KYC acknowledgement will be issued to each applicant.Once your KYC is through choose good schemes.How to Choose a Mutual FundKeep the following things in mindPedigree of the fund house. There are good names like - Birla, DSP Black Rock, Franklin Templeton, Kotak, L & T, Reliance, Tata, Principal, MiraeGenerally avoid sector specific funds like Infrastructure, Banking, Power, Transport, Pharma; any fund having a specific name attached to it.Its Crisil Rating and Rank. Choose a rating of 5 or 4 star or Rank 1 or 2The AUM – Assets under Management should be minimum Rs. 500 crore and maximum Rs. 10000 crore. More become unwieldy.Chose Large Cap, Medium and Small Cap, Diversified Equity or Balanced.

At the outset, one needs to be clear that there is no difference between NRIs from US/Canada investing in India and for NRIs from other countries investing in India. The only difference is the fairly elaborate compliance requirements under FATCA or Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act. Fund houses stopped taking investments from the USA and Canada because of the complexity associated with the compliance.Under FATCA, it is mandatory for all investment intermediaries to share details of transactions involving US / Canadian citizens, including NRIs with the US Government. FATCA is intended to ensure that there is no deliberate tax evasion by US residents on income generated overseas. Some of the large mutual funds have already started accepting investments from US and Canada based NRIs, with caveats. While some AMCs insist on additional documentation and safe harbour provisions, there are others that bar US and Canada based NRIs from investing in closed-ended funds. But once these compliance issues are sorted out, US based NRIs can invest in India like any other NRI based anywhere in the world. Why and How?Having said all this, MF investments to US and Canada based clients is restricted to the below given 8 funds as of now and they cannot invest in others.Birla Sun Life Mutual FundSBI Mutual FundUTI Mutual FundICICI Prudential Mutual FundDHFL Pramerica Mutual FundPPFAS Mutual FundSundaram Mutual FundL&T Mutual FundReliance Mutual FundWhy the lure of mutual funds for NRIs?Traditionally, NRIs preferred bank deposits and real estate in India. Recently, NRIs have started investing aggressively in Indian mutual funds. Let us understand the process flow of how NRIs can invest in mutual funds in India? Are there specific mutual funds for NRIs to invest in or can they invest in funds of any AMC? In the last few years, interest rates have been coming down and the currency risk is also not as pronounced as it was in the past. This is impelled many NRIs to look at Indian equities more serious, albeit through the mutual funds route.Repatriable versus Non-Repatriable Mutual Fund investmentsNRIs, being based abroad, need to comply with the guidelines of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) before investing in mutual funds. The first thing that NRIs need to do before investing in Indian mutual funds is to complete the Know Your Client (KYC) process for investing in India. KYC is the same as for resident Indians, but a little more stringent and comprehensive considering that detailed PMLA guidelines in place. The PMLA guidelines are for the prevention of money laundering and round tripping of funds.The NRI can invest on a Repatriable basis or on a non-Repatriable basis. One can invest on repatriation basis into Indian mutual funds with an NRE (Non Resident External) account or a FCNR (Foreign Currency Non Resident) account. In case, the NRI wants to invest on a non-repatriation basis, then the NRI can also use the NRO (Non-Resident Ordinary) account which is a rupee account that can be used for rupee payments. Investments in MFs made from the NRO account cannot be repatriated.Investments and redemptions in Indian mutual funds by NRIs…While submitting the application after completion of the KYC, the details of the Indian bank account must also be mentioned in detail in the application form. Mutual fund will not accept any foreign currency cheque and any cheque or draft must be payable in Indian rupees only. NRIs can transfer funds through a dollar cheque through their Authorized Dealers (bank) and get a rupee draft issued. NRIs can invest in mutual funds directly or through power of attorney (POA). When the NRI executes a POA the accountability for the transaction and the compliance still vests with the NRI!The rules of capital gains will apply in the event of redemption of mutual funds like the way it applies to resident Indians. Redemption credit will be predicated on whether the investment was done on Repatriable basis or non-Repatriable basis. The flow of funds into the mutual fund and the flow out have to follow the same route. If you have invested from an NRO account, then the redemption will only be credited into the favour of that particular NRO account. Investments by debit to FCNR or NRE account will also be credited to the same account. However, in case of NRI / FCNR investments, the NRI can opt for redemption into NRO account.Capital gains calculations will be the same as in case of resident Indians…In case of equity funds, short term capital gains (up to 1 year) will be taxed at 15.45% (15% + cess). LTCG will be taxed at 10% flat above Rs.1 lakh of capital gains in the year. No indexation benefit will be available in this case. For debt funds, the STCG (up to 3 years) will be taxed at the peak rate applicable to the NRI. I LTCG on debt funds will be taxed at 20.6% after considering the benefit of indexation.There is one area where the treatment of capital gains will be different compared to resident Indians and that is with respect to tax deduction at source (TDS). If the capital gains or dividends paid to the NRI are taxable, then the fund will deduct the TDS and only pay the net amount to the NRI. Specific TDS rates have been clearly elaborated in the Income Tax Act.To sum it up, US / Canada based NRIs can invest into Indian mutual funds like any other NRI. However, the compliance requirements are a lot more stringent under FATCA. Mutual funds offer a good source for NRIs to diversify their overall global portfolio risk. It will also enable them to create wealth in India for their long term requirements, in case they plan to return.Click here to know more about our NRI services

You can find the same post here: Page on linkedin.comA Tech Concoction For MBAs, JDs and WannapreneursAug 7, 2015The Basic StartupAn atom has three basic parts but most bootstrapped tech startups have two:1) Builder of a Product - the rockstar engineer, CEO|CTO| tech co-founder who builds a scalable product that can make & keep customers happy. S/he is also the evangelist that attracts top engineers and stays ahead of the curve on cutting edge technology trends to exceed business requirements and leapfrog competitors. S/he builds a better mousetrap.2) Builder of a Market - the business guru, CEO|CXO| business or legal co-founder who brings in clients, partners, revenue and can be the 'ears on the ground' to identify and put a roadmap around new features after doing a webinar or attending a conference or based on domain expertise. This person is also charged with finding a repeatable sales cycle that defines most startups. This post is mainly for you!!!What's this post about?The outline below can be useful to get a FinTech startup off the ground, determining the core set of skills you might need to find a technical co-founder and a quick technical primer to have intelligent conversations as a Product CEO or CXO in front of your tech team, B2B relationships and investors.It can also be a reference tool for business folks, MBAs | JDs, and other non-technical founders that want to complement their business & financial skills (The Fin) with technical ones (The Tech) to add value as a technical product manager. What follows below is NOT a comprehensive list but what I'd consider a good set of resources that I've collected recently after four FinTech endeavors focused on powering Robo-Advisors and CrowdFunding portals via Web Apps and APIs. Three of those companies have been my own and while I am still searching for a BIG exit, I've had the great pleasure of partnering, hiring and working closely with 3 Tech Co-Founders and 8 Software Engineers in my startups and many more as a mentor, advisor and board member to several tech startups in a period marked by severe competition for engineering talent. I've also taught myself HTML, CSS, Flash, Fortran 90, SQL, C, Objective C and Java in the past.Some Web 2.0 BasicsIf you want to build your own website without coding: weebly andsquarespace are great tools to use. However, these are not replacements for building a technical product but simple ways to explain what you do online. Below are the tech sound bytes that explain the basics of front end, back end, APIs and a quick primer on product management. The Model View Controller (MVC) framework on the left gives you an idea for the most relevant components the View (what the user sees or front end which is typically received from the controller), theModel (the backend or database holding information, docs, etc) and theController (the glue and orchestrator between front end and back ends). It can update a record or send a command to the front end to change the view of the model (e.g. an updated stock price).Basic Web App Tech StacksFrom Left to Right: Front End Languages, Front End Frameworks, Back End Frameworks & DatabasesFront End Primer {Focus Point #1}Most useful and probably easiest Front End languages worth understanding are: Javascript, HTML5, CSS3, jQuery, Ruby. You don't need them all but a good understanding of Javascript, HTML and CSS can go a long way.To overly simplify things, think of HTML and CSS as the necessary languages to define the look and feel of your web pages whereas Javascript is a more powerful language that can behave as the glue between software components like your database and web server. It can also encompass powerful functionality like a program or action based on user input.Lastly, jQuery is a commonly used javascript library (in 65% of highly-trafficked websites) that is cross-platform compatible (runs on windows, mac et al).In the diagram above, left to right, Sass & less are newer versions of CSS which is primarily used to define elements of a page. For ex, all H1 headers in this doc, need to be Font: Verdana, Size:16 and Color:Black. That styling is a CSS example. This partially enables SaaS products to be white-labeled (branded per customer). CoffeScript is a more readable form of JavaScript.In the middle of the diagram, front end frameworks are basically sets of HTML | CSS templates|Goodies like fonts which are "useful tools for faster and better development. With frameworks you can build a well structured, maintainable and upgradable website. It also helps you save time because there are plenty of readily available elements that you can use." - sitepointBootstrap is a front end framework that can ease the development ofdynamic websites and web applications. In the diagram above, Foundation is another front end framework managed by Zurb whereas Bootstrap was started by Twitter.Ruby on Rails: "Ruby on Rails is an open-source web framework that’s optimized for programmer happiness and sustainable productivity. It lets you write beautiful code by favoring convention over configuration." In plain english, think of this as a supermarket of gems which are pre-packaged sets of functionality. If you need to attach a doc to an email, there's a gem for that which you can copy and paste into your programs.angular.js is one of the top JavaScript MVC frameworks for web apps. backbone.js and ember.js are similar and round the top three contenders. The right hand side of the diagram will be discussed in the back end section below.Back End PrimerBack End useful languages as a business person: Structured Query Language (SQL) so you can understand CRUD functions in a database. What's CRUD? Create, Read, Update, Delete records. Also helpful in defining basic APIs (see below).Good Concepts to know: Relational Databases | No SQL databases | Big Data 101 | Cloud (see Amazon AWS, Microsoft's Azure or Google Cloud)The remaining portion of the diagram reflects mainly backend tech. Mongo db is not a relational database (not SQL based). "MongoDB is one of the earliest database types under the NoSQL banner. Instead of using tables and rows as in relational databases, MongoDB is built on an architecture of collections and documents. Documents comprise sets of key-value pairs and are the basic unit of data in MongoDB" SourceNode.js is primarily a backend controller that specializes on non-blocking inputs and outputs and great for lots of concurrent users. Think of many people hitting the same tables and avoiding data corruption and "conflict locks" due to concurrent traffic. Lastly, Express (web-framework that goes hand in hand with node.js),Data Modeling Tools: Gliffy, OmniGraffle and MS Visio can help you provide your engineers with relationships between say, an investor and an investment. A household, to one to many members that can also have one or many accounts which may contain one or many investments and so on. Financial example here.Best languages for middle to backend: Java, C_, PHP, Python. Think of these as scripting languages where business logic, automation routines, algorithms, and harder to do stuff can be packaged. Fun facts I found out after b-school, the C language fits in less than 300 pages. Objective C, the basis for iOS programming is a subset of this language. I do think that for most business folks, adding value as a PM, Designer or UI Developer might be easier than to pick up back end programming.APIs ~ Legos {Focus Point #2}Think of APIs as legos that can allow for standard connectivity by way of inputs and outputs to be communicated between two systems. More importantly, APIs can help you wrap complex algorithms without disclosing your IP, externalize and monetize them via partners, clients and even competitors. As a business domain expert, you may need to define your APIs for your engineering team usingJSON (beware that lots of banks still love XML). These can be internal or external. As an example, Xignite is a FinTech company that built a huge business through APIs. A basic example of an API could be for a crowdfunding portal or Broker Dealer to send investor information collected during sign-up and for a service like FundPaaS, to return back a success status after successfully running a KYC, AML and Accreditation check on that person or business.Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) further defined & examplesCommonly Used APIs on Programmable Web, a great directory of APIsAPIs -- Network Effects and ROI >> 100%Other Implications | ConsiderationsDoes your stack affect your exit potential?"An analysis of Google, Facebook, Twitter, Box, Dropbox, and other emerging web players indicates that the stack doesn’t matter very much. While the tendency at most of these companies is either Java, PHP, Ruby, or Python, as long as the software service supports integrations via some form of web services **APIs**, the acquirer is able to develop an integration plan" See study Source"the large enterprise acquirers have a preference towards Java ... while some of the newer players have made investments in PHP and Ruby" SourceMajor Acquisitions by Acquiree and the Technology Stack from 2012-2015Security Issues -- particularly important in Financial ServicesJust beware of these issues and hire experts to help you here. This is beyond my pay grade and the scope of this post.Zero to One LearningTo be clear...What I am saying... as a Product CXO, you can learn the basic tech lingo to guide your technical hiring, define your MVP and understand the inner workings of a tech-stack at a high level. You can also play the Product& Business Development role that is so critical as you ramp up while keeping your team small and burn rate low. Learning a new trade will also slow down your startup so you have be careful and thoughtful as to the "what" and by "when" here.What I am NOT saying... to learn every single language or framework above or below or to switch from being an MBA | JD to a software engineer unless you can afford to take a year or two off and even then, you'll compete against the 16 yr old wiz that's been coding for 10 years.Full Dev ProgramsThere are many. These are three that I've become familiar with from a recruiting or learning perspective:Selection Based: www.HackReactor.com {to become an entry-level software engineer / good recruiting partners}Selection Based: www.devbootcamp.com {to become an entry-level software engineer / good recruiting partners}Pay & Go: www.bignerdranch.com {for specific iOS programming paid courses}Learning to Code Sites 101Again, many but these are the ones I've personally found useful. Also, each of the languages and frameworks described above have their own references and resources to teach you.Online video tutorials & trainingLearn to codeOnline Courses and Nanodegree Programs to Advance Your CareerEvery child deserves opportunityScratch - Imagine, Program, Share{Focus Point #3} - Product CXO Transformation Tools1) Agile MethodologyLearn Agile Methodologies to manage tech projects. DO NOT BRING typical financial services SDLC like waterfall methodologies to your tech startup as they'd greatly diminish your iterative power.2) Problem, Solution & MVP DefinitionDefine Problem & Solution Statements that your product will solve.Define user stories around the problem you are solving.Identify all features you can think of and prioritize these into an MVP.Useful software tools like JIRA, Trello, GitHub, Google Docs to track these items3) Rapid PrototypingAwesome tools here include Balsamiq, Gliffy, Keynote or Powerpoint, UX Pin or even a good old napkin with your ideas, screens and workflows. For mobile apps prototypes: Proto.io, mPath. This is a perfect skill for a business co-founder to develop and add value on product development.Ship your product quickly and often. Iterate through build, measure and learning loops that are based on data and feedback.4) Business Model CanvasThis is a great business modeling tool to think through an entire product or business in general. To me this forces you to think hard about revenue generation as a concerted effort and the product implications that can stem from each potential business model. It's sort of a visual business plan.Bringing it all together - My Suggested StrategyOh, and what's an Wannapreneur anyway? It's yes, another portmanteau for aspiring entrepreneurs that sometimes fall short of understanding that being a full-time entrepreneur is one of the *hardest things* you'll ever have to do and that usually involves learning faster than your competitors, re-inventing yourself sometimes and acquiring new skills when necessary. Luckily there are servicesjust for you. Also, see a related article on advise to 1st time entrepreneurs from a couple of years ago and be ready to take major risks including seeing your bank account go negative.Many MBAs and experienced business folks sometimes argue that acquiring technical knowledge is not the best use of their time and that they should focus squarely on the business side of things. I know there are plenty of successful business folks to whom this post wouldn't apply but I also know plenty of successful FinTech entrepreneurs that have invested the time to beef up their technical chops in order to start a FinTech company. For the bootstrapped entrepreneur, debt-ridden MBA/JD that wants to find a technical co-founder and build a FinTech startup on a shoe-string budget, this post certainly applies.If this resonates, you probably realize the power of continuous learning; you know there's nothing you can't do and appreciate why technical skills may lead to finding the unicorn technical co-founder once you can speak the same language and relate on different wavelength than business alone. This in turn, may immediately increase the value of your tech startup while keeping your headcount and burn rate low since you could handle all business + product management matters going forward. Or you may just do it for the sake or learning (+1 Like).I've heard plenty of disturbing comments stating that for every Engineer, you canincrease your valuation by X and for every MBA, you can subtract Y from your valuation. Well, I am both so I can freely express my unbiased opinion as a FinTech Entrepreneur, Biomedical Engineer, MBA that worked on Wall St and Silicon Valley. My hope is to add another section to the bridge between these two worlds and bring forth more FinTech startups into our ecosystem. So keep at it my friends and make sure that you build, measure and learn as you iterate through features and potential business models.Please add more tools, frameworks or valuable articles in the comment section. I'll re-post a 201 version in 45 days. ThanksIf you are here, you are a NERD. Here's the Extra CreditCommonly Used Tech StacksL: Linux {Operating System. Like Windows / Mac OS}A: Apache {Web Server}M: MySQL {Database}P: PHP {Scripting. Think Controller}Web Server???: The primary function of a web server is to store, process and deliver web pages to clients. The communication between client and server takes place using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). Pages delivered are most frequently HTML documents, which may include images, style sheets (hey you know these are CSS) and scripts (sounds like javascript) in addition to text content. The most widely used is the Apache.Operating System: Microsoft Windows, Mac OS, Linux. If you replace the L with W, you get WAMP. Another stack.Other Scripting Languages: Perl and PythonJava Stack ExampleM - Mongo (the backend), E - Express (web-framework that goes hand in hand with node.js), A - Angular.js (front-end framework), N - Node.js (the backend controller that specializes on non-blocking inputs and outputs. Great for lots of concurrent users)Transposing the Stack to an MVC EquivalentHow these communicate with each other