Tech: New app helps you invest smartly in mutual funds

Fisdom App

As we upgrade our lives with newer mobile apps, it's only imperative that the smartphone becomes a single window to our digital and physical worlds. Already, we do most tasks from our phones, be it buying rations, paying bills, tracking your child's education, or planning our investment.

Adding to this assembly of services is Fisdom.com, a new app-cum-website (available on Android and iOS) that offers automated investing recommendations. Co-founded by investment professionals Subramanya SV, Ramganesh Iyer and Anand Dalmia, the app combines technology with personalised advice to help you meet your financial goals.

What's on offer
The app uses an algorithm to help you make the right investment choices along with personalised recommendations. Currently, the app comes with four pre-set options - Build Wealth (systematic investment plans), Save For A Goal (retirement, education, wedding, vacation), Park Money Safely (lump sum investments) as well as Save Tax (for tax-saving investments). Depending on your choice, the target amount, age, and investment amount, it will draw up a chart of the corpus you can generate (in pic, left). You get the option to invest only in mutual funds or add stocks as well. Following this, it offers a probable list of mutual funds (or stocks) suited to your need. Minimum investment is set at Rs 5,000 for one-time investments and Rs 500 for monthly investments.

What we like
Fisdom charges no fee for using the app or its services. Instead, it receives (like any investment advisor) a commission from the mutual funds companies. The app also offers its services to help you transfer your mutual funds held elsewhere to Fisdom. And if you plan to dissolve your investment in future, according to the company, the algorithm will help you make the best choice possible, with minimum losses. There's a Fisdom expert available to answer questions. Though, an online chat support or a call-an-advisor option would have been preferable, we received an email response within an hour - and with some very valuable inputs.

What we don't
The mutual funds listed in each advice are few, and your investment amount is automatically distributed among them. Perhaps an option to increase or decrease the amount would be helpful. Also, there are not enough details on the mutual funds.

The Guide verdict
Fisdom is a smart idea to help the tech-savvy generation make investments. The makers say that the app analyses historical data to offer a list of mutual funds. But none of that data is available for users. Perhaps historical graphs of net asset value (NAV), the total asset held under the mutual fund, or its performance over the years should have been made available. Without which, you may be blindly following an algorithm.