India's homegrown digital financial services platform Paytm today announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary Paytm Money will host the country's first-ever ETF education conclave “ETF MasterClass - Rise with India†with ICICI Prudential ETF as the knowledge partner. The two-day event will see a series of acclaimed industry experts talking about ETFs as an important product for wealth creation and how one can build portfolios with ETF.

The speakers include domestic and international ETF Masters such as Ashishkumar Chauhan- MD & CEO, BSE, Sankaran Naren - ED & CIO, ICICI Prudential AMC, Deborah A Fuhr - MD, ETFGI,  Mukesh Agarwal- CEO, NSE Indices, Vishal Jain Head - ETF, Nippon India AMC Sameer Desai -National Lead - ETF, Nippon India AMC, Chintan Haria -Head: Product development & Strategy, ICICI Prudential AMC, Radhika Gupta- MD & CEO, Edelweiss AMC, Pratik Oswal- Head Passive Funds, Motilal Oswal AMC, Nitin Mathur - CEO, Tavaga Advisory Services, Sankha Mukerjhee - Trading expert and Coach & Pranjal Kamra - Founder & CEO, Finology Ventures .

Varun Sridhar, CEO, Paytm Money said, “We are excited to launch India's first ETF MasterClass with an esteemed group of experts. We continue with our mission to allow Indians to build wealth the right way and with "learn first" as the basic value. ETFs are a great tool as they have the lowest expense ratio when compared to other investment products and are simple to understand. A retail investor can diversify and can get exposure to various asset classes at the lowest cost. We expect over 1 lakh Indians to invest over the next 12 months and thus an education initiative delivered digitally is a great start. We are using technology to educate people on wealth management in a way it has never been done before! I strongly recommend everyone to attend this event because the best in the business would be giving out valuable advice and ETFs are going to be the most popular way of investing in the coming decade"

Paytm Money said that it has started a campaign to promote ETF as a must-have wealth creation product and encourage more Indians to invest in them as compared to other available products. They are cost-efficient as compared to traditional mutual funds due to lower commissions and higher returns which makes it a valuable wealth product for new to investments users. Trading in ETFs additionally presents new short-term income opportunities for investors.  

The company further said that ETFs are expected in the next 2 years to account for 20 percent of the overall AUMs for the company. The product has immense growth prospects and in the next five years would become the top investment avenue for Indians as it happened in the US and other markets.

Chintan Haria, Head, Product Development & Strategy, ICICI Prudential AMC said that “Evolved investors are preferring investments in smart beta ETFs where portfolio constituents are derived on the basis of certain factors such as Low Vol, Alpha, Value to name a few.â€

Mukesh Agarwal, CEO - NSE Indices said “We at NSE believe that ETFs are appropriate investment products for retail investors providing low cost and transparent exposure to capital markets. NSE will continue its efforts to grow the ETF markets in India†.

The conclave would span over six hours spread over two days that will include expert talk, fun games, and prizes and everyone can participate in the course from their home or office or on the mobile. Tickets for the ETF MasterClass will be available on Paytm Insider for Rs. 99, and all the participants will get a certificate and free brokerage worth Rs. 500 on Paytm Money.