The competence question

Who taught you about money?

For most of us, the honest answer is: whoever was nearby. A parent. An uncle at a wedding. A colleague who did well in one stock. A neighbour with firm views on gold. All of them generous with advice. None of them qualified to give it. And nearly all of it offered with genuine goodwill — which is exactly why it is so hard to question.

The parent who says real estate never loses money

He is not lying. The flat he bought in 1994 for ₹9 lakh is worth ₹1.6 crore today. That is his experience, and it is real. Here is what his experience never had to account for: three decades of inflation doing much of the work, a rental yield of 2–3% a year, the eighteen months it can take to sell a flat at a fair price, and what the same money could have earned elsewhere over the same period. He saw the price go up. He never saw the comparison.

The friend who bought one stock — or one coin — at the right time

His gain is real. It is also one data point. What you do not hear about at the office lunch: the three picks before it that went nowhere, the sleepless March when it fell by half, the fact that he invested money he could afford to lose. He does not know your loans, your dependents, your timelines, or your capacity to sit through a 40% drawdown without selling. One good call does not make an adviser. It makes a story.

The housewife whose gold has been on a tear

The recent bull run has made her the family's investment authority — the returns speak for themselves, and every gathering hears about them. What memory quietly edits out: for the better part of the last decade, gold went nowhere. Someone who bought in 2012 waited years for a meaningful gain in rupee terms before this run began. Then it began, and everyone holding gold looked brilliant. A dead clock shows the right time twice a day. Being right lately is not the same as being right — and it does not make anyone a competent adviser.

The mutual fund distributor

He knows funds. That is his category — by training and by regulation. He is not authorised to advise you on whether your insurance cover is adequate, whether your home loan should be prepaid first, whether your tax structure is leaking, or whether a mutual fund is even the right decision for you this year. He sees the mutual fund corner of your life. The rest sits outside his mandate.

The insurance agent

He has one tool. So every problem arrives looking like an insurance problem. Child's education? There is a child plan. Retirement? A pension plan. Tax? There is a policy for that too. When your livelihood depends on one product category, the diagnosis tends to arrive before the examination.

None of these people wish you harm. Most wish you well. That is what makes the pattern invisible: the advice is sincere. But sincerity is not competence. Life experience is not competence. Success in another field is not competence. In this field, competence has a legal definition.

A SEBI Registered Investment Adviser must clear NISM certification examinations, meet minimum education requirements, assess your COMPLETE financial position before recommending anything — income, loans, insurance, investments, goals, timelines — and is legally bound to put your interest first. Not one corner of your money. All of it, together, in one plan, examined by someone qualified for the whole and accountable for the whole.

Your father's flat, your colleague's coin, your aunt's gold, the distributor's funds, the agent's policies — each one is a piece. Someone has to be qualified to see the whole board. That is what a fee-only fiduciary adviser is for.