Best Financial Advisors in India | Fee-only | Zero Commissions

TL;DR: Fee-only financial advisors are a rare breed of financial advisors. Unlike 95% of the advisors out there, they don’t work on commissions. These commissions cause a significant dent in your overall long-term wealth. This page here lists all known fee-only financial advisors in India. In case you happen to find someone who isn’t on the list, drop a note so they can be added.

What’s behind the claim that ‘Fee-only financial advisors’ are the ‘best’?

My last post, spoke about why ‘fee-only’ financial planners are so rare, and the advantage which Direct plans have over Regular plans. The deceptively named ‘Regular plans’ have middlemen involved. They eat away your wealth in the form of commissions. Just in 2018-19, mutual fund distributors and middlemen nibbled away an incredible 8500 crores in commissions.

However, Direct plans of mutual funds have no such commissions. The ‘direct plan’ variant of a mutual fund hence almost always generate more returns for investors as compared to a ‘regular’ plan.

Almost 95% of financial advisors in India are commission agents

Only a tiny percentage of advisors stay away from the lure of commissions and provide advisory with only the clients’ needs in mind. They are referred to as ‘Fee-only Financial Advisors’ in India. And they only invest your money in Direct Mutual Funds.

I claim them to be the best because they’ve made a conscious choice to not nibble away at their client’s wealth, despite the lure being rather strong. This in itself is commendable and makes them worthy of being called the best.

You can find your own financial advisor by searching online for ‘Fee-only financial planners’ or ‘Fee-only financial advisors’. But we’ve been able to compile perhaps the most exhaustive list you’ll be able to locate.

Stuff you need to know before contacting them

1. Does the location of the fee-only financial Advisor matter? Should I only look for one in my city?

Almost all investing now occurs online, so the physical location of your advisor does not matter. If you fail to find one in your city, you could always get onto Skype/Zoom calls with any of them. I’m sure they’ll oblige. You may have to do some one-time offline work in your city; like submission of CKYC documents and the like. But most of this too can now be done online thanks to pandemic.

2. Should I have a basic understanding of finances before I approach ?

Yes.

You certainly don’t need to know everything. But a basic understanding? Yes. For several reasons. I’ll state two.

1. Simply because they’re good and honest, it doesn’t mean these financial advisors can create money out of thin air. You may be under the impression that there is a perfect investment product out there which provides great returns at no risk, and that a financial advisor can find it for you. But that’s not true. There is no such thing as a perfect investment product.
2. When you invest, you invest in basically what are called as asset classes. Equity is an asset class. Debt is another. Every asset class behaves in a certain way. Some asset classes are suitable for protecting money, while some are only suitable for growing it. You need to have at least a reasonable understanding of these behaviors. Otherwise you’ll be heading into this blind. As a simple example, you might look at an equity mutual fund’s 5-year return and assume that that’s how much your investment will grow every year. But that’s not at all how things work.

3. What else do I need to know before approaching ?

The second thing you’ll need to know are your goals and life’s milestones. What you invest in and where you invest, depends a lot on how close your life’s financial milestones are. So, a clear idea of your life goals will help not just you, but also your financial advisor in creating a better plan.

4. What is the reasonable fee to pay for a fee-only financial advisor?

As you’ve probably already read on many of my posts here, it is indeed possible to lose lakhs to commissions-based funds. This is the reason why you’ll easily find financial advisors who won’t charge you any fees — because they know that via commissions, they’ll make far more money off you, than what you’d ever be willing to pay.

When it comes to fee-only financial advisors, I’ve never known one who charges unreasonably. Most charge in the 12K to 25K range, and this indeed depends on the amount of work they need to do.

Some clients approach them just to help them with their investments, some ask for a full consultation of insurance and investments, and others may request for a complete financial planning across more complex financial issues(NRI taxation, inheritence etc.) So it isn’t fair to expect a fixed pricing from them when the needs of each client can vary so much.

But I can honestly say that currently, their services are well worth the fees charged. Bear in mind, that they’ve already consciously chosen to not nibble away at your hard earned money.

So interact with a few and see who you are comfortable with. That should give you a fair idea of pricing. You can always change your financial advisor if you are truly unhappy, because you aren’t tied down.

5. Can I trust them with my wealth and goals?

I would vouch wholeheartedly for them.

The very fact that these folks have stayed from the lure of high commissions speaks volumes about their principles. I have personally interacted with some of them from the list, and I’ll gladly hire a fee-only financial advisor any day.

5. Can I become my own financial planner? What does it take?

It is possible. What’s needed is a firm understanding of the fundamentals. Without this foundation, you are bound to make a lot of mistakes. But once you’re past learning these essentials, investing for yourself or your family members isn’t rocket science.

If you are interested in managing your own investments and would like to learn the skill, I’d recommend attending the weekend program. Thanks to Covid, the next few iterations of the program will be online. So you can attend it from anywhere.

List of known Fee-only financial advisors in India

Here below is the latest list of all such commission-free, fee-only financial planners we’ve stumbled across.

Two things to note

1. Pay no attention to the order. It’s sorted alphabetically.
2. Before proceeding to contact any of them, you should read the F.A.Q above.

Here’s the full list.

Use the search bar to filter for city & state.

I’ll add more FAQs as they occur.

For now, Good luck and Happy Moneyplanting.

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