India's UTI Mutual Fund is partnering with mobile-payments provider mChek Pvt. Ltd. to launch UTI Mobile, a service that enables investors to initiate payment instructions for investing in mutual funds from a mobile phone, a spokesperson for the Mumbai-based asset management company tells PaymentsSource.
"To use this service, an investor would have to initially fill in the registration form and submit [the information] to UTI," he says. "After that, he would receive a confirmation subsequent to which he could trigger payment instructions from his mobile phone."
After the investor sends the instructions, UTI Mutual Fund will debit the investor's preregistered bank account for the mutual fund purchase.
The service is available free to investors, who still pay any charges associated with the mutual fund purchase.
In April, Mumbai-based State Bank of India similarly launched a service that enables its debit cardholders to buy mutual funds online from its mutual fund service.
