Here's how you can link your mutual funds with Aadhaar

Bank accounts, phone numbers, insurance policies, PAN, PPF, NSC, LPG connections. If you are thinking what we are up to, we must tell you we are counting the number of services brought under the Aadhaar fold by the union government so far. To this list we can also add mutual funds as a recent amendment in the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) Rules, 2017, the government has made mandatory for mutual fund houses to obtain their customers' Aadhaar numbers and link the same to their respective accounts. If you have started investing lately, you must have already provided your Aadhaar as a part of your Know Your Customer (KYC) documentation. But if you invested long back and have several folio in your portfolio, here's how you can go about linking the two of them. Here's how you can get it done.

Approach your mutual fund house: You can link your mutual fund folio with 12-digit Aadhaar with the help of your mutual fund house. Some mutual fund houses do it online. Check the website of your mutual fund. Some fund houses provide a link on their website for Aadhaar seeding. To carry out this exercise, you need to have a folio number and Permanent Account Number (PAN) handy. In case your mutual fund house doesn't provide this option, you might have to go to the branch physically with the documents like PAN and your folio number for updating your Aadhaar number.

Connect with Registrar and Transfer agents: Mutual fund registrar and transfer agents (RTAs) like Computer Age Management Services Pvt. Ltd (Cams) have made Aadhaar linking simpler by its online option. You just need to enter your PAN, name and email ID or phone number or date of birth. Once you enter this, you would receive an OTP on your Aadhaar registered phone number. Key in this on the website. Once you provide this, CAMS, will link the folio and send you the communication about it.

While you can easily update your mutual fund folio with 12-digit Aadhaar with two abovementioned ways, updating the two via a distributor is being planned too. However, you have to wait till the process is rolled out.

3 things to keep in mind
Make sure the name in the folio matches the one in Aadhaar to avoid getting the updation request rejected.

In case you are a joint holder in the mutual fund folio, you too may be required to furnish Aadhaar details. However, in the online process, there is no separate mention of joint holders. As of now, the updation is happening via investor approval, which means an OTP-based verification rather than a biometric one. The deadline to link the duo is December 31, 2017. Think this as sacrosanct, failing which you may not be allowed to transact further in the folio.