FINANCIAL TASKS CHECKLIST (PART 2 OF 3)
· Either it is laziness or constraints that prevent you from finishing a pending financial task.
· Enlist the most pressing ones and set a realistic time frame to complete them.
· Keep aside 30 minutes a day for clearing the backlog.
· Streamline your financial life by handling financial tasks as they surface.
C. MUTUAL FUNDS
1. Complete nomination formalities
· Filling up the nomination form is a very useful facility since it enables the nominee to get the funds of the investor upon his death by simply submitting proof of identity.
2. Consolidate your holdings
· Apply on a plain paper by mentioning the folio numbers that need to be merged and the fund house will do the needful.
· However, this will not be possible if an investment is held jointly or has been made through different brokers or investment channels.
3. Sign up with an online portfolio tracker
· Listing all your investments at one place will get you an overview of how your investments are doing, individually as well as collectively.
· It will also explain your asset allocation, allowing you to take corrective action, if any.
4. Apply for online transaction facility
· Register yourself for online transaction facility with your mutual fund houses, as it makes your investment process direct, easy and convenient.
D. DEMAT ACCOUNT
1. Open a demat account
· A demat account is necessary if you want to invest in stocks, bonds and gold ETFs.
· It is best to open a demat account with a reputed firm.
· You will also have to open a share trading account.
2. Update nomination details
· Complete the nomination formalities for your demat account.
· While it is linked to your bank account, the demat nomination is separate from your bank account details.
3. Get shares dematerialized
· Though demat is optional and an investor can hold shares in the physical form, you will face problems when you are selling these securities.
· Most brokers don’t accept physical shares and dealing in these is a cumbersome process.
· It involves problems of bad deliveries, delay in processing, fraud in transit, etc.
· The demat form allows quick transfer of ownership without any chances of fraud.
4. Consolidate your demat accounts
· Consolidate your holdings into a single demat account, by transferring the shares through an off-market transaction, using the delivery slip of the other demat accounts.
· If the ownership pattern of the accounts is different, the holdings will not be consolidated.
· If you have opened the additional account for joint ownership of securities with your spouse, child or any other relative, don’t close it unless the reason for opening it has changed.
5. Apply for share transposition
· Changing the order of names in which a security is held is called transposition.
· If you own physical certificates jointly but the names are in a different order, the demat form will follow the same pattern.
· So you may have to open as many multiple demat accounts as the different name orders.
· To avoid this, ask your depository participant for transposition while applying for dematerialization.