Direct plan
Market basicsA mutual fund version with no distributor commission built into the expense ratio.
In plain terms
Same fund, same manager, same portfolio — typically 0.5–1% cheaper every single year.
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Glossary
Every term is defined twice: once the way a filing would put it, and once the way somebody would explain it to you across a table. The second one is usually the one that sticks.
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Regular plan
Market basicsThe version of a mutual fund scheme whose expense ratio includes a commission paid to the distributor who sold it.
In plain terms
Same scheme, same manager, same portfolio as the direct plan, typically 0.5–1% dearer every year. The extra is charged whether or not any advice is ever given.
Trail commission
Market basicsA recurring commission paid out of a scheme’s assets to the distributor who sold it, for as long as the units are held.
In plain terms
It is inside the expense ratio rather than beside it, so it is never billed and never renewed — which is why nobody in the chain has a reason to mention that the direct plan of the same scheme exists. Where genuine advice is being given it can be the cheapest item in a plan; the objection is that it rises with the balance rather than with the work, and does not stop when the advice does.