Q: How does Scripbox work?

Here's how Scripbox works. Start by choosing a purpose When you login, you can choose the purpose for which you are investing Long Term Wealth: grow wealth over the long term with consistently performing Equity funds Short Term Money: FD equivalent, invest in high quality Debt funds for 1-5 years Tax Saver Plan: tax break under Sec 80C (3 year lock-in) Emergency Money: for unplanned needs, invest in a debt fund that comes with a debit card Scripbox will help you invest in the best funds for that purpose In each category, start by deciding the investment amount. Scientifically chosen funds are presented to you. You can go ahead and invest. You can also set up automatic monthly SIPs. Emergency Money: for unplanned needs, invest in a debt fund that comes with a debit card Stay invested in the best funds - always We will track how your money is doing and send you alerts and statements. We review the selection of funds every year and recommend a change if better funds are available. Save money on exit loads and taxes We also track your holdings and let you know when you can exit a fund without exit load and tax. These are costs that unaware investors end up incurring without realising.

Question 1

What are the benefits of investing through Scripbox?

Accepted Answer

Investing through Scripbox comes with several benefits like:

Scientific and unbiased fund selection
One single account for your entire family’s investment needs
Annual portfolio review and re-balancing which is inline with the recommended investment best practices
Online tracking of how your investments are performing
Timely alerts and account statements
One-click online investment and withdrawal

Question 2

Why would I want to invest in a regular plan through Scripbox over a direct plan?

Accepted Answer

We believe that the services which we provide are much more valuable than the 0.5% saving you will make through investing in direct plans. The benefit could come in the form of:

extra returns earned due to unbiased fund recommendations
extra returns due to the best practice investing process including portfolio review and re-balancing
costs saved due to our tax-efficient algorithms
your own time that you save

Question 3

Why do you offer only 10 mutual funds?

Accepted Answer

From a business point of view, it makes a lot of sense for us to have all the mutual funds made available to you. If you don’t invest in our recommended portfolio, we can still generate revenue through commissions when you invest in your chosen funds. But we decided to give up that option because we care about how your investments are doing.

At Scripbox, we believe in a simplified investment approach. We strive to give you an automated and simplified way to invest. Given too many choices, the chances of you making the wrong investment choices is very high. Instead of trying to make more money, we decided to take the longer route and help you grow your money by limiting choice, thereby reducing your margin for error.

With a curated set of limited funds, you can:

Start investing in less than 10 minutes: By giving you only 10 pre-selected funds, we eliminate two common problems investors face: which and how many mutual funds to invest in. You don't have to spend days researching the best funds. In less than 10 minutes, you can set up your account and schedule your investments.

Achieve the right amount of diversification: One of the main advantage of mutual funds is that for a small amount of money, you can achieve diversification. However, one common myth is that the more mutual funds you invest in, the better diversified your portfolio. Based on our extensive analysis, we have found out that having more than 4 funds in your portfolio, for a particular asset class e.g. equity, does not give you any additional benefit of diversification. Instead of giving you the false image of highly-diversified portfolio, we decided to give you the best funds every year - 4 equity, 3 debt, 2 tax-saving and 1 emergency fund.

Manage your portfolio size: Managing the 10 best funds is far easier and efficient over managing 20 average funds. You can save the extra time and effort you would otherwise spend on fund management.

This curated-set-of-funds approach is best suited for people who:

Want to ensure that they have the best funds in their portfolio every year

Believe in automating their investments and not micro managing them every day (set-it-and-forget-it approach)

Think long-term when it comes to investments

Believe that the quality of funds in your portfolio matter and not the quantity

This approach not suited for people who are very advanced investors and prefer to make buy and sell calls based on market conditions (also referred to as timing the market). While it’s good to have a small number of funds, it’s equally important that you always have the right funds. That’s why Scripbox does an annual review of all mutual funds and prompts you for a portfolio change if required. This ensures that you have the best-performing funds every year.

Question 4

Why do you recommend only diversified mutual funds?

Accepted Answer

Our philosophy is that the fund managers - with their years of experience and backing of dedicated research teams - are better placed to make decisions regarding which sectors or market segments to invest in. This is why we select only diversified funds where the fund manager has complete freedom to pick stocks.

Question 5

Why does Scripbox always recommend the growth option over the dividend option of a mutual fund?

Accepted Answer

In the Growth option of a mutual fund, you realise returns only when you sell your units. You don’t receive any payments, interest or dividend in the interm. The NAV grows as the fund performs over time. In the Dividend option of a mutual fund, you will get periodic returns at different intervals. The intervals and dividend amount are not certain or fixed. The NAV doesn’t go up, and when it does, you get a dividend.

The Growth option is better because:

Compounding: The Growth option makes sure that gains are reinvested so your money grows at a faster rate (with time) as the fund performs better. So money invested today in growth option grows more, the longer it is in a good fund. The effect is cumulative. Imagine a snowball rolling down the hill - the more it travels, the bigger it grows.

Tax treatment: When you invest in Growth option, the gains are treated under something called capital gains. Long-term capital gains is taxed at 10% for holding period more than 1 year, on gains more than Rs 1 lakh. This advantage is not available for the Dividend option.

Question 6

How does Scripbox work?

Accepted Answer

Here's how Scripbox works.

Start by choosing a purpose

When you login, you can choose the purpose for which you are investing

Long Term Wealth: grow wealth over the long term with consistently performing Equity funds
Short Term Money: FD equivalent, invest in high quality Debt funds for 1-5 years
Tax Saver Plan: tax break under Sec 80C (3 year lock-in)
Emergency Money: for unplanned needs, invest in a debt fund that comes with a debit card

Scripbox will help you invest in the best funds for that purpose

In each category, start by deciding the investment amount.
Scientifically chosen funds are presented to you.
You can go ahead and invest. You can also set up automatic monthly SIPs.
Emergency Money: for unplanned needs, invest in a debt fund that comes with a debit card

Stay invested in the best funds - always

We will track how your money is doing and send you alerts and statements.
We review the selection of funds every year and recommend a change if better funds are available.

Save money on exit loads and taxes

We also track your holdings and let you know when you can exit a fund without exit load and tax. These are costs that unaware investors end up incurring without realising.

Question 7

What can Scripbox do for me?

Accepted Answer

Scripbox helps you invest in the best mutual funds out of the 8000+ options available in the market.
You can invest in the best 10 mutual funds recommended by us using a completely paperless.
You will also receive investment proofs for the same which can be used while filing tax.
If and when a fund underperforms we make sure we replace it with a better performing one so that your money is always invested in the best funds always.
Scripbox also makes sure you incur least tax while you withdraw your money from your Scripbox account.

Question 8

How is Scripbox different from my broker, financial planner, bank or other financial websites?

Accepted Answer

What is common between Scripbox and other online platforms: All of us will help you carry out a transaction of investing and redeeming from mutual funds.

What's different: Our focus goes beyond just the transaction. We actually track your portfolio, provide annual review and assist you in making your money work hard for you.

Almost all online brokers provide more choice (all the 8,000+ funds and a few other options) and you should choose them if that’s important to you. However, if you are looking for automated best practice investing, Scripbox is your answer.

We provide certain unique features such as the tax-efficient withdrawal, capital gains statement for income tax return filing etc which make your life easy.

Scripbox works for both beginners and advanced investors. Our customers like our simplicity and our focus on long term wealth accumulation for customers rather than just the transaction.

Type of Investment	Exit Load
Equity	1% of sale proceeds if sold within 1 year of purchase
Debt	Usually none.
Tax Saving	Not applicable as these equity investments cannot be sold before the 3 year lock-in period, thereby exceeding 1 year.

Type of Investment	Holding Period to be classified "Long Term"	Tax on Long-Term Capital Gains	Tax on Short-Term Capital Gains
Equity	1 year from purchase	10% capital gains tax on gains over Rs.1 Lakh.	15% flat tax on the gain amount after exit load deduction + cess
Debt	3 years from purchase	20% tax after “indexation”: a process by which you can adjust your purchase cost upwards based on inflation	Tax based on your income tax bracket (10% or 20% or 30% + cess)
Tax Saving	3 year lock-in for these equity funds to be eligible for section 80C income tax deduction	10% capital gains tax on gains over Rs.1 Lakh.	Not applicable as these investments cannot be sold before the 3 year lock-in period

Scripbox Help Center

What are the withdrawal charges? Are there any taxes to pay?