Franklin Templeton Family Solutions – Goal Based Mutual Fund Investment

By
Hemant Beniwal
34

A new innovation has arrived in the Indian Mutual Fund Industry – Franklin Templeton Family Solutions. Some time I tell people that “mutual funds are not investments but investment tool/vehicle to achieve once goals.” And now Franklin Templeton Family Solutions plan fits better in this definition.

Let’s understand it in detail – Franklin Templeton Family Solutions features, benefits, process, and limitations. Also check the plan that I have created from it & compared it with my solution. You can also download the Family Solutions Planner (software) from end of this post.

What is Franklin Templeton Family Solution?

Franklin Templeton Family Solutions – Goal Based Mutual Fund Investment
New age thinking is – when people buy something they don’t buy a product or service but they buy a solution. And when you seek a solution means you are looking at a problem which is already there or may be visible in future. So when you buy mutual fund or any other investment for that matter you are actually looking to achieve your financial goals. So Franklin Templeton Mutual Fund has taken a clue from this need of every investor and designed Franklin Templeton Family Solutions. Family solutions can help you to plan for your retirement, child’s future & other accumulation goal like buying a dream house of a foreign trip.

Must Check- Returns cannot be your Goals

Process of investing through Franklin Templeton Family Solutions

  1. With help of your financial/mutual fund advisor create a goal plan through Family Solutions Planner (software).
  2. Based on the solution fill a specially designed form; attach your goal sheet & a single cheque.
  3. Franklin Templeton mutual funds will register your goals in their system & will create a special account. Will send you a welcome letter & customized statement.
  4. Periodically review your progress with online account of your advisor.

Must Read – Setting SMART Financial Goals – Complete Guide

Benefits of investing through Franklin Templeton Family Solutions

  • Through Family Solution Software you can build your customized goal plan.
  • You can invest in Franklin Templeton Mutual Fund trough single form & single cheque.
  • You can monitor your plan through customized statements & your advisor.
  • You can design the plan but there is no compulsion that you should invest the whole amount or only in suggested funds.
  • Biggest benefit what I feel is when you link your investments to goals you stay longer in that particular investment solution. You are away from the sometime erupting greed during good market phase or temptation to do an impulse purchase. And this avoids unnecessary churning & keep you focused on your goals. That’s the reason people who invest according to financial plan have higher probability of achieving their goals.

First let’s check a plan that I have prepared using this software & then check few big limitations of Franklin Templeton Family Solutions.

Read – Magic of Mutual Fund Systematic Investment Plan (SIP)

Franklin Templeton Family Solution Plan

Try to understand plan which is self explanatory. I have assumed simple figures so that you can easily understand the plan & calculation.

Franklin templeton family solutions plan

Franklin Templeton Family Solutions Limitations

  1. It doesn’t consider growth in savings but actually when you will earn more you can save more. So if you are in private job you can expect 8-12% growth in your salary & you can also increase your saving by 4-6% every year. If we will consider saving growth your starting monthly saving figures will be substantially low.
  2. It doesn’t consider that when I will achieve my 1st goal – I can divert my fixed saving to other goals. For ex in above goal I would like to buy a car in 8 years & I need to save Rs 9483/month for that. But what will happen to this saving once I buy car. Either I will reduce my saving or divert it to some other goal. So figures shown by Franklin Templeton Family Solutions not look practical.
  3. You have to fill single form & cheque but minimum investment amount for fresh and additional purchase in each scheme shall be as specified in the respective scheme.
  4. Biggest problem is Franklin Templeton Family Solution or any other such solution will talk about investing in single mutual fund company. But very basic rule of mutual fund portfolio construction says that you should not invest in more than 1 fund in single fund house. This is same as sticking with an insurance company in case of ULIP.
Franklin Templeton Family Solutions – Goal Based Mutual Fund Investment Click to Tweet

My Solution after removing first 2 limitations

If you have checked the plan constructed through Franklin Templeton Family Solutions it shows that I should save Rs 35000 per month to achieve all my goals. But I tried some different calculations – according to that I can start with monthly saving of Rs 22000 – assuming 5% increase in savings every year.

Emotional side of Franklin Templeton Family Solution

We all know goal based or emotional based sales are successful in Insurance. Is Templeton MF doing something good or it is just another emotional way to sell.

Livemint newspaper quoted “Lifestage (plans) has to come. You have to touch emotional chord of people. That is how they will invest,” said an industry official, who also holds office at the Association of Mutual Funds in India, the industry lobby. He declined to be named.

Clearly hinting if this goes through well others will line up with their solutions. Anyway time will tell the real picture.

Download Franklin Templeton Family Solutions Planner (software)

Removed after getting message on bugs.

Share your views on Franklin Templeton Family Solution and what else you would like to see in such solutions.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

34 COMMENTS

  1. Hi Hemant,

    Might be a good start for MF Industry.At least they have come to the stage of talking goals of individuals.
    However, what they are trying to do is take the financial planning in their own hands.I personally feel product manufactures should stick to products and let the solutions be provided by the professionals.It will be very distructing to give this kind of softwares in the hand of distributors who would not be knowing about goal based planning.And i am not sure whether any kind of short term trainings can really turn them to hard core professionals.

    What mistake insurance companies did by mixing insurance with investment might be repeated here.

    • Hi Jitendra,

      Actually this is not a financial planning software or not even some goal planning software. But still this is “Deemag Ki Batti Jala de” software 🙂 – people should know their retirement corpus will be in multi crores but they have not started saving for it.

      One of the bigger reason for sharing this(that you also said) was that few agents use some similar software to bring some data & then tell clients to buy ulips or mfs. So why not TFL readers check these figures for FREE.

      If I talk about my comprehensive financial plan – it runs in close to 30 pages & the output that is generated by this software(Goals) not even take 1/2 page space in that.

  4. Hemant,

    Doesn’t Reliance Mutual Fund also have something similar ?
    Wonderful articles from your side and keep the gyan coming.

  5. Hi Hemant,

    As you rightly said, the software is giving an awareness to the investors to think about the future but again its totally a marketing gimmick. I’m sure, in near future, we may see more such type of software’s from other fund houses.

    Also I’m afraid that, since many funds have entered/entering in the market with different schemes, the investors who don’t have information about the various schemes may come into their trap.

    Mani

    • Hi Mani,

      But still I think it is an eye opening software – but people should understand other limitations.

      Regarding your second part – in us there are more mutual fund schemes than no. of equity shares. Same will happen in India too.

  6. Hi Hemant,
    In goal sheet, What is Future cost of Goal? is it the total return we get after completing the specified years ?

    • Hi Sreedhar,

      Future cost is Future Value of particular goal after taking into consideration inflation. For ex if you want to buy car after 5 years – it’s present cost can be Rs 5 lakh but Future cost will higher due to inflation impact.

  7. Dear Hemant,

    Thanks for this article and sharing the software. The software is really good which helped me in understanding my investment goals.

    Its true that the software is “Deemag Ki Batti Jala de” 🙂

    Regards,
    Vishwa.

  8. Seems to be another of those gimmicks the marketing whiz kids come up with. Is,nt it strange that for all goals ranging from 7yrs to 28yrs they r advising to invest major chunk in Flexicap and FI Bluechip/TI Growth fund– wonderful way to garner funds into these schemes. And btw, none of the schemes from this fund house feature in the top rankings as compared to HDFC MF or DSPBR MF equity schemes . regards

  10. Hi Hemant,

    Nice articles. I was expesting some good software…might be excel based. It is no good for Financial Planning (as you have also mentioned it in some comments)

    Can we have some article briefly discussing only about complete financial planning by having assumption and illustration,

    Thanks for sharing

    Alpesh

  11. Dear Hemant,
    Very nice article from you and awesome review…. i have a doubt in that planner… most of the ppl want to buy a home in EMI… Assume X want to buy home in three years by loan cost of 40 lac.. in three years he need to arrenge 20% of the home value as a intial payment Rs.8,00,000. so his first goal would be create 8 lac in three years and then plan for emi ammount….
    in their view home can buy only after 20 years or so..

    • Hi Jayaprash,
      Its not like that “goal would be create 8 lac in three years” – you can do the same thing here. But only problem is they don’t have any provision regarding EMIs.

  12. Hi Hemant,

    I appreciate the constructive way of the software and thanks for sharing. I have got an idea as to where I stand and how should I plan towards my future goals… This is really an eye opener for me… But I afraid I will not go with Franklin templeton for the reasons shared by Mr. N.M.R. Shreedhar above.

    I have read many of your articles particularly related to Mutual Funds, I would prefer investing in other MFs as per your suggestions in those articles instead of Franklin Templeton, what is your views on this.

    I have the following doubt:
    To buy a home in the next 5years (through a bank loan) my financial goal for the next 5years should be the down payment amount, please correct me if I am wrong.

  13. Hi
    Kindly suggest some 5 best performing Mutual funds to go forSIP.I am planning an investment of Rs.10000 in total in these.per month.
    with regards

    • Hi
      Go for the diversified funds
      ICICI Prudential Focused Bluechip Equity(LARGE cap) 2000
      idfc premier equity(Mid cap and small cap) 1000
      Birla Sun Life Dividend Yield Plus – Growth(less volatile and in (Mid cap and small cap) ) 2000
      HDFC Top 200 Fund – Growth(LARGE AND MID cap) 2000
      hdfc balanced/prudence 1000
      HDFC equity(above sixty percent in large caP)(Multi cap)1000
      In addtion to that U can go for sector funds
      Reliance Banking fund growth —-1000
      icici fmcg——————————-1000
      sector funds are always riskier. so try to avoid that.
      This works on core and satellite model

  14. very nice sir………..u r very genius!!!!u r real indian as u aware all indians about their most imp thing money………how to invest and where????i like it.

  15. Hi Hemant
    I really like your “Dimag ki Batti Jala De” idea, and “Mere Dimag ki Batti Jal Gayi”, I want to invest in MF’s for all those reasons mention in Software, I am an NRI person working as a supervisor in a construction company, can you please assist me, how should I start investing in MF’s means where I should open account and which type of account, and I also want all these MF’s to be manage online, because I can go to india for 1 month or less in a year.
    Please advice ASAP 🙂
    Thanks

      • Hi Hemant,

        I am a PSU bank employee , aged 35 years joined PSU bank in May, 2012.
        Will i get gratuity and superannuation after completion of 5 years of service?
        I have to join New pension scheme now. Is is not similiar to Provident fund scheme? Seems to be same Provident Fund scheme with 8% contribution from employer and employee both. New pension scheme is just similar to that with change in name?

Comments are closed.