Can one consultant give you access to all unit trust from different fund managers? Now it is still early to give you an affirmative answer. Effective Oct 11 2007, financial planners with the CMS Licence are eligible to apply to register with the Federation of Malaysian Unit Trust Managers (FMUTM) as Corporate Unit Trust Advisors (CUTA). Cuta will be able to provide you all unit trust products, from different fund houses. I said it is still early, because it takes some times to apply for the Cuta license.

The Requirement for CUTA

• only financial planning corporation registered with Securities Commission
• holds the CMS license
• initial paid-up capital of RM100,000
• minimum professional indemnity of RM200,000 per claim to protect investors in cases of professional negligence. (Yes, you can sue them if they tell you unit trust is like Fixed Deposit)
• must represent at least two unit trust management companies at all time ( e.g. represent both Public Mutual and TA unit trust, or any other fund houses)

Introduction of CUTA benefits investor

When CUTA becomes accessible in the near future, you can save the trouble of doing “fund-shopping” anymore. Let’s say you want to invest in Hwang-DBS fund, but your existing Public Mutual agent just can’t provide you the product at this moment. You might ended up buying it via other agents. The more funds you bought, you will have more agents to deal with. After the introduction of CUTA, all you need is a reliable and professional licensed CUTA to provide you a mixed unit trust portfolio.