Guide
A plain-English guide to a confusing market: what SEBI registration means, who is paid by whom, and the questions that separate advisors from salesmen.
Almost everyone who calls themselves an advisor is one of two regulated things, and the difference is who pays them.
Registered with SEBI under the Investment Advisers Regulations. Paid directly by you, as a flat fee or a percentage of assets. Cannot earn commissions on what they recommend. Required to meet qualification and certification standards (NISM), act in a fiduciary capacity, and keep records SEBI can audit.
Registered with AMFI, holding an ARN. Paid by the fund house through commissions built into the expense ratio of regular plans. Can recommend and execute, but the incentive question is structural: the products pay the person choosing them. Good distributors manage this tension openly; bad ones pretend it does not exist.
Fund selection is the smallest part of the job. The compounding decisions live elsewhere.
Every rupee gets a job and a date, and the portfolio is built backwards from the goals, not forwards from whatever product is being featured this quarter.
The equity-debt-real asset split explains most of your outcome. Rebalancing it on a discipline, not a mood, is where advisors quietly earn their keep.
Regime choice, deduction usage, redemption sequencing, and harvesting. Returns are measured after tax, and this is the layer most self-managed portfolios skip entirely.
Term and health cover sized to income and liabilities. Not an investment, but the thing that keeps one bad year from undoing ten good ones.
See what a full wealth management system includes, or start with a free portfolio review: 30 minutes, no product pitch, findings yours to keep.
This guide is general education, not personalised investment advice. Verify any professional's registration directly with SEBI or AMFI.