What are regular plans and direct plans?

All mutual fund schemes offer two plans - Direct and Regular.

1. In a Direct Plan, an investor has to invest directly with the AMC or with an online robo-advisory platform, with no distributor to facilitate the transaction and no investment advice.  Direct plans have a lower expense ratio as there is no distribution fee involved.

1. In a Regular Plan, the investor invests through an intermediary such as distributor, broker or banker who does all the market research, gives investment advice and is paid a distribution fee by the AMC, which is charged to the plan. Regular plans have a slightly higher expense ratio to account for the commission paid to a distributor to facilitate the transaction. 
   

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) introduced direct mutual fund plans in January 2013, making it mandatory for all Asset Management Companies (AMCs) to provide an option to invest in mutual fund schemes directly, without the involvement of an agent, broker or distributor. Regular and Direct plans are just the two options to buy the same mutual fund scheme, run by the same fund managers who invest in the same stocks and bonds. 

The average difference between regular plans and direct plans of the same scheme is approximately 1%, and varies from fund to fund.  This 1% added up over time results in significant cost savings for you.  Please read the scheme information and other related documents carefully before investing.

Glide Invest does not sell regular plans of mutual funds. We only sell direct plans of mutual funds across all our partner mutual fund houses.

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