ET Money

ET Money is an Indian personal-finance platform and direct-plan mutual fund investment application, operated by Times Internet Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bennett, Coleman and Company Limited (BCCL), publishers of the Times of India and the Economic Times. Accessible at etmoney.com and through Android and iOS applications, ET Money is structured as a SEBI-registered investment adviser (RIA) under the SEBI (Investment Advisers) Regulations, 2013, alongside complementary AMFI ARN and IRDAI registrations for non-MF distribution. The platform combines direct-plan mutual fund distribution, an automated portfolio-recommendation service (ET Money Genius), insurance distribution, and a personal-expense-tracking module that traces back to the platform’s pre-Times-Internet origins as a personal-finance tracker.

By 2024, ET Money disclosed over one crore registered users, positioning it among the larger consumer-facing direct-plan investment platforms in India alongside Kuvera , Groww , and INDmoney . The platform’s product positioning is distinct within the peer set: where Kuvera emphasises pure-RIA fiduciary obligations and Groww emphasises broker-integrated stockbroking, ET Money emphasises personal-finance integration (expense tracking, tax planning, insurance) alongside the core mutual fund distribution function. The Economic Times brand association reinforces the platform’s positioning as a financial-planning resource for educated retail investors, with particular salience around the end of the financial year for tax-planning workflows.

The ET Money product offering operates across two principal tiers: a free core offering providing access to direct-plan mutual fund investing and expense-management tools, and a premium subscription called ET Money Genius, which provides model portfolio recommendations, automated rebalancing suggestions, and personalised advice features. The Genius subscription, launched in 2021, was an early attempt by an Indian retail platform to introduce a paid-tier advice product within the SEBI RIA framework and positioned ET Money between purely self-directed direct-plan platforms and full-service wealth management.

Founding and corporate history

Pre-Times-Internet origins

The platform that became ET Money originated as a personal-finance tracking application focused on expense management and household financial-planning. The product was acquired by Times Internet in 2015 and integrated into the Economic Times brand portfolio. The acquisition rationale was that BCCL’s existing audience for financial content (the Economic Times website is among India’s most-visited financial-news destinations) represented a natural distribution channel for a personal-finance application.

Relaunch as ETMONEY, 2015 to 2017

Following the 2015 acquisition, the product was relaunched as ETMONEY (subsequently stylised as ET Money), leveraging the Economic Times brand. The initial post-relaunch product retained the personal-finance-tracker positioning, with expense management and budgeting as primary use cases.

Mutual fund launch, 2017

ET Money launched its direct-plan mutual fund investing feature in 2017, coinciding with the broader expansion of the direct-plan platform market following SEBI’s January 2013 direct-plan mandate. The Economic Times brand gave the platform credibility with financially literate audiences who were already familiar with the newspaper’s content on investing, mutual funds, and personal finance. The product launch was deliberately positioned at retail investors who had read Economic Times articles on mutual funds and wanted a convenient direct-plan execution route.

ET Money Genius launch, 2021

In 2021, ET Money launched ET Money Genius, an automated model-portfolio recommendation service operating as a paid annual subscription. Genius was an early attempt to introduce a paid-tier advice product within the SEBI RIA framework on a mass-market retail platform. The launch positioned ET Money between Kuvera’s pure-RIA-zero-commission model and Groww’s broker-integrated zero-subscription model.

Expansion and integration, 2022 to 2026

Through 2022 to 2026, ET Money expanded its insurance distribution business, deepened the Genius portfolio recommendations, and integrated more tightly with the broader Times Internet content ecosystem. The platform also adapted to the July 2023 Execution-Only Platform framework , formalising its direct-plan distribution model under the new SEBI safe harbour.

Corporate structure

Times Internet Limited operates several other digital properties including Times of India online, Cricbuzz, MensXP, Indiatimes, and Slike (an audio platform). The ET Money business benefits from cross-promotion across Times Internet and BCCL properties, particularly the Economic Times website and its associated newsletters.

The ownership structure differentiates ET Money from venture-capital-backed competitors such as Kuvera (until the 2023 Smallcase acquisition), Groww, and INDmoney. The strategic-corporate-parent ownership enables longer-term investment horizons and tighter integration with the parent’s media operations.

Regulatory framework

ET Money operates under several distinct regulatory regimes:

SEBI Investment Adviser

ET Money holds SEBI registration as an investment adviser under the SEBI (Investment Advisers) Regulations, 2013. As an RIA, the platform is subject to:

• Fiduciary duty toward advised clients.
• Commission prohibition: cannot collect trail commission from mutual fund AMCs on products on which it advises.
• Mandatory client agreements and fee disclosures.
• Separation of advice and execution.
• Minimum qualification requirements for the principal officer.
• Periodic compliance audit.

The RIA registration is the basis for the ET Money Genius advice subscription; the core direct-plan mutual fund distribution operates as an Execution-Only Platform without advice.

AMFI ARN

ET Money holds an AMFI ARN registration, enabling it to place direct-plan transactions with CAMS and KFin Technologies as the RTAs.

EOP framework

Under the July 2023 SEBI EOP framework , ET Money’s transaction-execution function operates as an Execution-Only Platform, complementing the advice function under the RIA registration.

IRDAI

ET Money holds an IRDAI registration as an insurance web aggregator or insurance broker (depending on the specific product), permitting distribution of term life and health insurance products from partner insurers.

Product range

Direct-plan mutual funds

The core product is direct-plan mutual fund investing across equity, debt, hybrid, solution-oriented, and passive (index, ETF) schemes from all SEBI-registered AMCs. The platform supports:

• Lump-sum subscriptions.
• Systematic Investment Plans (SIPs) with a minimum SIP of Rs 100 for eligible schemes.
• Systematic Transfer Plans (STPs) and Systematic Withdrawal Plans (SWPs) .

The app provides fund discovery tools, risk profiling, fund comparison, and scheme ratings sourced from third-party research providers including CRISIL and Value Research. The platform integrates the SEBI mandated riskometer and the post-2017 scheme categorisation framework into its fund discovery flow.

ET Money Genius

ET Money Genius is a paid annual subscription service that provides:

• Model portfolio recommendation: A multi-fund portfolio aligned to the investor’s goals (retirement, child education, home purchase) and risk tolerance.
• Automated rebalancing alerts: Monitoring of portfolio drift from the recommended allocation, with alerts when rebalancing is suggested.
• SIP top-up suggestions: Recommendations to increase or adjust SIP amounts based on goal progress.
• Behavioural-finance coaching: Periodic content addressing common retail-investor biases.
• Personalised portfolio reviews: Periodic review of the investor’s full mutual fund portfolio, including externally held folios imported via the CAS .

Genius is priced on an annual basis and is positioned as a middle ground between completely self-directed direct-plan investing and full-service wealth management. The subscription model is structurally permissible under the SEBI IA Regulations because it represents fee-for-advice rather than commission-on-product.

ELSS and tax saving

ET Money places particular emphasis on Equity-Linked Savings Schemes (ELSS) , which qualify for tax deductions under Section 80C of the Income Tax Act, 1961 up to Rs 1.5 lakh per year. The app prominently features ELSS calculators and tax-saving dashboards. The Economic Times brand association reinforces the platform’s positioning as a tax-planning resource, particularly ahead of the end of the financial year. ELSS investments are subject to a three-year statutory lock-in measured from each instalment date.

Insurance distribution

ET Money distributes term life insurance and health insurance products from partner insurers, acting as an IRDAI-registered intermediary. Premium-comparison features are offered, with insurers including HDFC Life, ICICI Prudential Life, and other leading providers accessible through the app. Insurance distribution operates as a commission-earning model distinct from the RIA-based mutual fund framework.

Expense tracking

The original ET Money use case was personal expense tracking, and this feature remains available. The app connects to the user’s email or SMS to automatically identify and categorise financial transactions, providing a spending dashboard that aggregates bank transactions, credit card expenses, and investment SIP flows. The feature was the original product before the Times Internet acquisition and remains a structural differentiator from purely investment-focused peers.

Fixed deposits and NPS

ET Money offers fixed deposits with select partner banks and NBFCs, earning a referral commission. The National Pension System (NPS) is also available through the platform; NPS contributions are eligible for tax deductions under Section 80CCD(1B) up to Rs 50,000 per year, additional to the Section 80C limit.

Sovereign Gold Bonds

ET Money supports Sovereign Gold Bond (SGB) subscriptions during issuance tranches. SGBs provide a fixed coupon plus gold-price-linked principal, with LTCG exemption on maturity redemption under Section 47(viic).

Folio architecture

Mutual fund units invested through ET Money are held in Statement of Account (SoA) format at the AMC registrar (CAMS or KFin Technologies), consistent with the Kuvera model and differentiated from the Zerodha Coin demat-format approach. The SoA format means:

• ET Money holdings do not appear in the investor’s demat account.
• They are not visible in a CDSL or NSDL demat statement unless separately dematerialised.
• The holdings appear in the AMC’s records under the investor’s folio number, mirrored to the Consolidated Account Statement (CAS) .

Investors with existing folios at other platforms may consolidate their portfolio view on ET Money by importing the CAS from the depositories or by linking RTA accounts directly.

Comparison with peer platforms

The strategic-corporate parent ownership distinguishes ET Money from the VC-backed competitors. Among the RIA-registered peers, ET Money and Kuvera operate similarly on the regulatory side; the differentiation is in product positioning (Genius vs goals-based planning) and in the broader content and tax-planning ecosystem.

Industry impact

Direct-plan share

ET Money is one of the four principal pure-play or near-pure-play direct-plan platforms in India (alongside Kuvera, INDmoney, and the broker-integrated platforms). The 2024 to 2025 crossing of the 50 per cent direct-plan share of industry AUM was driven in part by the cumulative growth of this platform set.

ELSS distribution concentration

ET Money’s emphasis on ELSS distribution makes it disproportionately represented in late-financial-year (January to March) ELSS inflows. The platform’s tax-planning workflows are seasonal in nature, with significant traffic and conversion during the tax-saving window.

Insurance distribution

ET Money is among the top digital-only insurance distribution platforms in India, with the IRDAI registration enabling it to compete with dedicated insurance aggregators (Policybazaar, Coverfox) on term life and health insurance distribution.

Personal-finance integration

The persistence of the expense-tracking feature from the platform’s pre-2015 origins gives ET Money a distinctive personal-finance-integration position that other direct-plan platforms have not replicated to the same depth.

Recent developments

ET Money Genius enhancement

Through 2024 to 2026, the ET Money Genius product has been enhanced with goal-progress tracking, more granular asset-allocation models, and integration with the post-July-2024 capital gains tax regime for tax-optimised rebalancing.

EOP framework compliance

The July 2023 SEBI EOP framework required adjustments to ET Money’s direct-plan execution flow. The platform completed compliance ahead of the prescribed timeline.

Tax-planning workflows for the 2024 regime

The Finance (No. 2) Act, 2024, with the harmonised 12.5 per cent LTCG rate, the raised Rs 1.25 lakh exemption threshold, and the abolition of indexation for non-equity capital assets, required ET Money to update its ELSS calculators, the Genius rebalancing engine, and the tax-planning dashboards. The post-July-2024 versions incorporate the new rate structure and the transition rules for sales straddling the 23 July 2024 effective date. The grandfathering rule for pre-2018 equity holdings continues to be applied.

Insurance distribution growth

The insurance distribution business has continued to grow through 2024 and 2025, with the platform integrating new partner insurers and expanding into health insurance categories beyond the initial term-life focus.

AIS integration

The Annual Information Statement reconciliation workflows have been integrated into the ET Money tax dashboards, enabling investors to reconcile their AIS data against their ET Money capital gains computation.

Investor grievance and compliance

ET Money provides an investor-grievance-redressal mechanism through its SEBI RIA registration, with grievances addressable to:

1. ET Money’s internal grievance officer.
2. SEBI’s SCORES portal for unresolved grievances.
3. The Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) overlay introduced in 2024.

The platform discloses commission and fee information consistent with SEBI IA Regulations requirements, and publishes a conflict-of-interest disclosure for products where it receives referral fees from third-party product providers (FDs, NPS, insurance).

Criticism and debates

Genius subscription value

The ET Money Genius subscription model has been periodically debated in retail-investor commentary. Critics argue that for many users, the Genius advice may not produce sufficient incremental return to justify the annual subscription. Defenders point to the behavioural-finance-coaching aspect, which is genuinely difficult to value but may have material long-run benefits.

RIA cross-subsidisation

Like Kuvera, ET Money operates under the RIA framework with commission prohibition on advised products. The platform’s economics depend on cross-subsidisation from non-MF products (insurance, FD, NPS) and from the Genius subscription. The structural sustainability of the pure-RIA-zero-commission model has been a long-standing industry discussion topic.

Strategic-corporate vs venture model

The Times Internet ownership produces a more cautious capital-allocation pattern than the VC-backed peers. ET Money has historically grown more slowly than Groww or INDmoney on absolute user-count metrics, while maintaining better unit economics. The trade-off has been the subject of industry commentary.

See also

• Mutual fund
• Mutual fund industry in India
• Direct plan adoption in India
• Regular plan versus direct plan
• SEBI Investment Management Department
• SEBI EOP Regulations 2023
• AMFI
• AMFI ARN
• Mutual fund distribution in India
• SIP in India
• STP
• SWP
• ELSS mutual fund in India
• Total Expense Ratio (TER)
• Mutual fund riskometer
• SEBI scheme rationalisation circular 2017
• Mutual fund consolidated account statement (CAS)
• CAMS
• KFin Technologies
• MF Central
• MFU (Mutual Fund Utility)
• Kuvera
• Groww
• INDmoney
• Zerodha Coin
• Capital gains tax in India
• Grandfathering rule for LTCG
• Annual Information Statement (AIS)
• SEBI Investor Charter for Mutual Funds
• SEBI SCORES portal
• CDSL
• NSDL

References

1. SEBI (Investment Advisers) Regulations, 2013, as amended.
2. SEBI Circular SEBI/HO/IMD/IMD-POD-1/P/CIR/2023/74, July 2023, Execution-Only Platform Framework.
3. ET Money regulatory disclosures, etmoney.com/compliance.
4. ET Money Genius product disclosures, etmoney.com/genius.
5. Times Internet Limited corporate disclosures, timesinternet.in.
6. AMFI ARN Holder Listing, Association of Mutual Funds in India.
7. IRDAI Intermediary Registration Records, Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India.
8. Finance (No. 2) Act, 2024, Sections 51 to 56 (capital gains tax regime).
9. Income Tax Act, 1961, Section 80C (ELSS deduction), Section 80CCD(1B) (NPS deduction).
10. SEBI Master Circular on Mutual Funds, SEBI/HO/IMD/IMD-PoD-1/P/CIR/2024/137, 27 May 2024.