Nithin Kamath, Hansi Mehrotra Launch 'Money Mindful' Series For NISM Distributor Exam Candidates

Zerodha Co-Founder Nithin Kamath and The Money Hans Founder Hansi Mehrotra have collaborated to launch 'Money Mindful', a free video series to help candidates prepare for the NISM distributor exam.

NISM, or the National Institute of Securities Market, conducts examinations for candidates exploring career in the field of asset management.

Kamath has also partnered with AssetPlus—an end-to-end platform for financial advisors and investors to scale business or manage investments digitally. The platform helps distributors start their business once they pass the exam through Rainmatter, an entity linked to Zerodha that provides funding and mentorship.

Money Mindful, the new financial education series, almost covers the full NISM Mutual Fund Distributor course curriculum. It has been uploaded on the official YouTube account of Zerodha.

"Despite all the interest in the stock market after Covid, there are still only 5 crore unique mutual fund investors. I've said this earlier as well—one of the biggest challenges for the Indian markets is the lack of an advisory ecosystem with just about 900 registered investment advisors or RIAs," Kamath tweeted.

Kamath noted that India’s financial advice industry has not grown as fast as it should have.

"If you consider mutual fund distributors, there are about 2.7 lakh+ plus, but still not enough. For a broad comparison, there are over 27 lakh+ insurance agents. If Indian markets have to expand, not only do we need RIAs but mutual fund distributors or MFDs as well. Moreover, it's tricky to make the RIA model work in smaller cities and towns," he said.

Kamath highlighted that even though Zerodha offers direct plans, he knows that they are not for everyone. "Which means distributors will always have a role to play. Being a mutual fund distributor is also a good career option for a lot of people," he said.