If you’ve ever looked for financial advice—whether it’s figuring out where to invest your hard-earned money or planning for your future—you know how tricky it can be to find someone you can really trust.

It’s been over a decade since SEBI rolled out regulations for RIAs to ensure that investors get unbiased advice. But here’s the thing: there are just about 900 RIAs in India. Of this, most RIAs are stock tipsters, and if you just count the number of RIAs who do holistic financial advisory, maybe there are a couple of hundred, that's it. For context, we have 10 crore unique investors.

So, why is that number so low? What’s stopping more people from becoming RIAs? How will the proposed changes by SEBI affect the advisory ecosystem?

To make sense of all this, we spoke to Vivek Rege, a board member of the Association of Registered Investment Advisors (ARIA), who himself is an advisor with decades of experience in financial advisory. Vivek was also a part of the 14-member working group responsible for SEBI’s new consultation paper, which aims to ease the requirements for becoming an RIA.

In this conversation, Vivek shares his insights on:

1. The challenges faced by RIAs under the current regulatory regime

2. The evolution of RIA regulations over the past decade

3. The key highlights of the new SEBI consultation paper

4. The ongoing debate between RIAs and distributors, and the impact of “incidental advice”

5. The future of financial advisory in India and what more needs to be done to promote the profession

In the next episode, we will deep dive into the topic of Research Analysts (RAs).

You can also watch this video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/U337OtChBXo