Think Debt is a joint initiative between ICICI Prudential MF and Wealth Forum, which aims at sharing new thoughts and new paradigms to help the industry make deeper inroads into the large pool of conservative retail savings that offers a huge growth opportunity for the retail debt segment of the MF business.

Opening the innings of this initiative, Raghav says that a good way forward for us to achieve this goal is to increasingly focus more on offering smart solutions to retail investors and not focus only on tactical solutions for savvy money. The pie for smart solutions is substantially larger than that for tactical solutions. Clarity in product positioning and effective communication is the first step in this direction, and Raghav shares how his team has achieved this with their fixed income product range.

WF : At our Wealth Forum conference, you made an observation that bridging the gap between the huge retail debt opportunity and the present retail debt industry AuM will call for a different approach - one that embraces smart solutions rather than incrementally sell more products. Can you please elaborate on this thought?

Raghav : Indian household savings have been very poorly invested in financial assets like equities and debt, while it is highly over-invested in physical assets like gold and real estate. Also, a chunk of investments are held into the traditional fixed return instruments.

Investors have to increase their investments in financial assets now in order to create wealth for themselves in the long run and to enable investors for this, ICICI Prudential AMC offers a bouquet of smart solutions that address the need of investors invested in such traditional instruments. The holdings in traditional fixed return instruments offer an opportunity for distributors which can be tapped using the smart solutions.

WF : Most conversations on debt between fund houses and distributors tend to focus on interest rate outlook and the best product to pitch for a given outlook. How would you like these conversations to change, if we are to truly embrace "smart solutions" as a way of life?

Raghav : While, there is a wide bouquet of fixed income products available in the market, there still lies a lack of understanding amongst investors and distributors regarding the same. Ideally, the communication for the existing basket of products needs to be simplified in order to help the retail investor comprehend their benefits and thus embrace smart solutions.

The advisor community should highlight the debt products not just as tactical solutions but ever green solutions which could for part of core portfolio of investors inclined towards traditional fixed return instruments.

A combination of right communication, category awareness and long term product performance could create a gradual but significant shift in investment behavior over the next few years. Our fund house endeavors to engage them in knowing about these products by building our education initiatives around the subject.

WF : What initiatives can distributors look forward to from ICICI Prudential AMC in their effort to adopt smart solutions as a way of life when engaging with clients on debt funds?

Raghav : ICICI Prudential AMC has an array of initiatives - all of which are aimed at enabling distributors to serve investors better and helping investors make better informed investment decisions. Through various channels, we have been constantly communicating our view on fixed income to our advisor community.

Some of our initiatives to engage with advisors from time to time for debt solutions:

Roadshows & Congregations:The fund house is committed to reach across the length and breadth of the country to create awareness about the smart solutions that debt funds could offer. Our fund managers have been conducting advisor and media meets, across the country to communicate our positive view on fixed income as an asset class.

Investor Meets: Investor meets have been conducted in partnership with distributor network in their respective locations wherein the investment experts disseminate information about benefits of investing in Debt Funds.

Newsletters: Newsletters 'Tarraki Times' being issued to the distributors on a monthly basis to communicate our key views. Tarraki Times is a compilation of ICICI Prudential Media views in form of authored articles, interviews and fund reviews. 'IPRU Insights' is our investor newsletter to help investors take an informed decision.

I-Pru Touch: ICICI Prudential Asset Management Company launched- I Pru touch, a virtual platform created exclusively for financial advisors to address their pre-sales requirements in terms of information that could help them serve investors better. Through I-Pru touch, we have been disseminating the importance of fixed income solutions in one's portfolio.

The application gives access to market news, expert views, product & NFO updates. The application also provides investment planning tools in form of several calculators which can aid advisors to tailor investment solution for investors and consult them to achieve their financial goals.

Other Communication tools: There is also regular communication with the advisor community through monthly Market Outlook conference calls and information based mailers to offer investment insights to them on to serve investors better.

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