Dear investor, you are on your own; Sebi, RBI cannot help

What is the similarity between a politician wooing a voter and the financial industry wooing an investor? Both end up being dumped once they have done their job.

The politician dumps the voter after the election, and financial industry dumps the investor after she has invested in a product or service. The voter and the investor do not have anyone to go to if they feel cheated. And this cycle continues.

Investors are the most sought after but the least looked after. Regulators and policymakers claim that they exist for the investor but they end up looking after the entities that have done harm to the investor. When it comes to the crunch, regulators protect the large firms, be it asset managers or banks, as they worry about a systemic risk.

[caption id=“attachment_172124” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Investors do not ever get back their money even if regulators unearth frauds. Reuters”]  [/caption]

The investors who have been given a raw deal by these financial service providers and who have lost money due to the mismanagement of their funds do not get anything.

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The “Occupy Wall Street” campaign is more an outpouring of grief by people feeling cheated by policymakers than against the establishment of Wall Street itself. The fact that such campaigns fail to change anything should be an eye-opener for investors. Investors should reconcile themselves to the fact that they are nowhere in the picture when it comes to financial frauds or mismanagement of funds.

Investors do not ever get back their money even if regulators unearth frauds or asset managers are punished for mismanagement of funds. In short, investors must learn to take care of themselves and not expect any regulator or policymaker to address their grievances.

Sebi recently acted against IPO frauds by banning promoters and merchant bankers for doing business. The investor who bore the brunt of these frauds by losing money has not gained anything from the regulator’s actions. The promoters and merchant bankers who have been banned need not work for the rest of their lives, as they would have made enough money in cheating investors.

Mutual funds and insurance companies float schemes only to collect money by paying high commissions to distributors. Investors in such schemes are seeing their investments turn sour, but they are in no position to get their money back. The regulator, in hindsight, has banned such practices but in the end the investor is bearing the brunt of high commissions paid.

Banks regularly take clients for a ride by charging fees that clients are not aware of. The regulator consistently pulls up banks for such practices but at the end of the day the client has paid the fees and he is worse off for it.

Investors are fed advice by media and there is no dearth of free investment advice. Investors losing money by acting on such advice have no recourse, as they cannot get back their money for following the advice given out by the media.

The sooner the investor learns that he is left to fend for himself the better. There is no protection for the investor who has lost money through financial scams, frauds, etc. Even if regulators probe and punish those found guilty, investors do not get back their money - as seen in the IPO case. The only way an investor can protect himself is by learning to take care of his money himself.

The recent credit crisis of 2008 and the subsequent sovereign debt crisis in the eurozone have proved that no one is beyond failure. Big names like Citigroup and Merrill Lynch fell flat post the credit bubble while large economies such as Italy suffered from lack of appetite for their debt. Investors should not get carried away by names or size or promises of higher returns, as money lost can never be recovered.

Arjun Parthasarathy is the Editor of www.investorsareidiots.com, a web site for investors.