I just got a promotional message from my broker (ICICI Direct). The intention of the email is possibly to get me to log back on to the website and do some transactions – remember that the broker makes money when I transact, and buy-and-hold investors don’t make much money for them.
So the mail, which I’m sure has been crafted after getting some “data insight”, goes like this:
| Here is a quick update on what is happening in the world of investments since you last visited your ICICIdirect.com investment account. | ||||||
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While this information might be considered to be useful, it simply isn’t enough information to make me learn sufficiently about my portfolio to take any action.
It’s great to know what my portfolio value is, and what the Sensex moved by in this period (“since my last logon”). A simple additional piece of information would be how much my portfolio has gone up by in this period – to know how I’m performing relative to the market.
And right in my email, they could’ve suggested some mutual funds and stock portfolios that I should move my money to – and given me an easy way to click through to the website/app and trade into these new portfolios using a couple of clicks.
There’s so much that can be done in the field of personal finance, in terms of how brokers and advisors can help clients invest better. And a lot of it is simple formula-based, which means it can be automated and hence done at a fairly low cost.
But then as long as the amount of money brokers make is proportional to the amount the client trades, there will always be conflicts of interest.