India’s largest investment portal today announced the launch of MF Direct Account, a special scheme launched to attract, new investors to the world of mutual funds.

The two-in-one account is a combination of a savings account and a MF investment account. Customers who open a Direct MF Account can seamlessly invest in mutual funds with the click of button. On investment the funds get transferred from their savings account and on redemption the funds get transferred back to their savings account.

The Direct MF Account can be opened at any center of ICICIdirect and is currently free of cost. There are no transaction costs for investing or redeeming, apart from those charged by individual fund houses.

The Direct MF Account is backed by the most exhaustive research on all available mutual fund products in the country. This will allow the customer to a huge basket of over 1000 mutual funds, their portfolios and past performance before taking an investment decision.

 The product is a result of an intensive research carried out by ICICIdirect.com. The research pointed to the fact that an overwhelming majority of consumers look at Mutual Funds as a first safe step into the stock market. However what they expect from the seller is neutral, fact-based research that can help them evaluate the huge number of schemes available. This is exactly where ICICIdirect.com comes in.

 Anil Kaul, Head ICICIdirect elaborates on the need gap, “As per the latest 2007 report of Invest India Market Solutions – Dataworks, there are about 144 Mn working age Indians with bank accounts. Yet there are only 5.8 Mn demat accounts. This gap represents the potential for this new product from ICICIdirect.com. We believe that with our quality services and research backed product, customers will see immense value in the offering. We also think that having taken this first step, they will then take the second of immersing themselves deeper into equity. We have thus created a ladder for their ease and convenience.”

The MF Direct Account comes with the following advantages:

• Customer can invest in MF through CallNTrade
• Convenient paperless MF investments 
• Automatic Credit/Debit from Bank account 
• Online order status tracking 
• Online updation of portfolio calculated at latest NAV. 
• Online dividend payout / reinvestment facility 
• Single point customer query handling 
• Conveniently investing in SIP, in case one chooses to

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