Mutual Fund Investments Made EASY

The way Mutual Fund Investments were made has gone through drastic changes over the past couple of Months. Revamping Mutual Funds Industry should have been a Himalayan task for the Market Regulator. Though they stopped Entry Load which resulted in some unrest, atlast SEBI has got its points right. The recent developments are:

-----(1). All Mutual Fund Schemes can be bought and sold through Stock Broking Terminals. Stock Brokers will be eleigible to be considered as official point of acceptance with effect from 11-Oct-2009.
-----(2). The Stock Exchange would provide the same convenience and comfort to MF investors, as that being offered to share investors.
-----(3). You can DEMAT your existing Physical MF Units into dematerialized form.

Gainers out of this development:
-----(1). Investors in the first place. They can transact in the same way like shares.
-----(2). Convenience: No need to maintain pile of account statements. All investments are in single sheet of paper.
-----(3). Stock Brokers: This would streamline the Invesmtent Industry. As a result, only people who are serious into this industry would continue to exist. All Back-packers need to find some other green pastures.
-----(4). AMC's: It would reduce lots of costs : no need for huge marketing force, no need for individul offices, no need to pass fat comissions to distributors. As a result only those fund houses who are genuinely interested, genuinely qualified would survive. All others would be --- washed out.
-----(5). As a result, there would be forced consolidation. Lots of AMC's who are not interested in growth - rather not confident of themselves and the industry would be forced to sell their MF's, as a result Investors need not get confused with 32 AMC's.
-----(6). Above all - say a BIG Good Bye to New Fund Offers (NFO's). Lots of AMCs were surviving purely on NFO's. The huge agent force was hard pushing NFO's in particular. As a result we see lots of investors 'dumped' with unwanted investments. This new move would discourage NFO's.

Unanswered questions:
.....(1). Time tested concepts like SIP's and TRIGGERS existence or continuance is in question. Since units are purchased thro stock market, IS IT POSSIBLE TO LEAVE STANDING INSTRUCTIONS? SEBI circular is not clear on this.
.....(2). Will Physical transactions (like the present form) co-exist with Demat form. Or are we migrating to demat once for all.
.....(3). Will local transacting offices - like CAMS or Karvy or AMC's office exist.

Inspite of unanswered questions, Let us hope MF industry gets redefined as we move forward.