SMALL SIP

INVESTING JUST ₹250 A MONTH—IS IT A GAME CHANGER OR A GIMMICK? SBI MUTUAL FUND'S JANNIVESH SIP AIMS TO DEMOCRATISE WEALTH CREATION, BUT CHALLENGES PERSIST

- BY NAVNEET DUBEY

SHOULD I HAVE my weekly ₹240 Chana Bhatura at the snack bar? Mungerilal's stomach growled as his heart said, 'Cut down on fried foods!' Buy some petrol for my bike? Take the Metro! As he locked his cramped apartment and left for work, his brain said: Invest! Get into that JanNivesh from SBI Mutual Fund. Just ₹250 a month.

Mungerilal, a clerk, let his dreams take wing.

India's mutual fund behemoth is swinging low to get more Mungerilals into the stock market via systematic investment plans or SIPs.

How low? Say, ₹250 a month? The usual SIP is ₹1,000 or ₹500 a month. In February, SBI Mutual Fund, India's largest asset management company (AMC) with ₹11.16 lakh crore under management in December 2024, launched the JanNivesh ₹250 SIP to give the common man a shot at investing without losing his shirt.

Big daddy SBI MF has an extensive distribution network, which includes over 22,500 branches of its government-owned parent, the State Bank of India, India's largest commercial bank. Following closely are the private sector's ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund (₹9.01 lakh crore), HDFC Mutual Fund (₹7.93 lakh crore), Nippon India Mutual Fund (₹5.73 lakh crore), and Kotak Mahindra Mutual Fund (₹4.82 lakh crore).

D.P. Singh, Deputy Managing Director and Joint CEO of SBI MF, says, "JanNivesh ₹250 SIP brings us closer to our goal of promoting financial inclusion."

SBI Funds Management, which runs SBI MF, is a joint venture between SBI and France's Amundi, one of the world's Top 10 asset managers. SBI MF has partnered with Paytm and other fintech players to offer an easy entry point into investing.

"This is an important step in our shared vision for a Viksit Bharat, where every citizen has access to wealth-building opportunities," says Singh, a 31-year veteran of the banking and financial services industry with 25 of those years at SBI MF.