How women can invest wisely to minimise tax outgo

Below is the verbatim transcript of Roongta's interview with CNBC-TV18.

Q: It is an International Women's Day today, so it is appropriate that we focus on the investment needs of women. How can a woman invest wisely to minimise her tax outgoes? Is it wise to invest in the women oriented schemes offered by mutual funds or should a woman go for asset allocation according to her risk profile?

A: I think woman investor is an investor first and woman later. So, whatever applies to other investors as much applies to women. She must look at what risks she can take what goals she has. If they are long-term then ability to take risk increases and therefore allocates to specific assets whether it is equity, debt or whatever.

As far as specific schemes are concerned, mutual fund industry has not come out with too many specific schemes. There is UTI Mahila Unit Scheme , which is a hybrid debt aggressive scheme. Performance has not been anything to write home about. It is not among the top quartile.

There are a lot of woman oriented insurance policies. However, what applies to regular investors that not to mix insurance and investment, applies to woman investors as well. Therefore, I think no specific schemes that are good are available for woman.

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Therefore, a woman needs to invest just like any other investor. It is possible that the risk profile might be different. For example in some cases if it is an income that it to be used to create wealth then your ability to take risk is higher and therefore you can have higher allocation to equity.