Questions worth asking any firm, answered here

Forty-five minutes, no charge, no obligation. We ask what you already hold, what the money is for, when you need it, and the largest fall you could absorb without changing your plans. We do not recommend anything on that call — we cannot responsibly, because we do not yet know enough about you.

PAN, Aadhaar or another accepted address proof, a bank account in your own name, and a recent photograph. Corporate and HUF clients need additional documents. [PLACEHOLDER: list your exact document requirements and the verification provider you use.]

[PLACEHOLDER: state your actual turnaround, from document submission to funds deployed.]

Yes, and most clients should. Starting with the core portfolio and adding a capped satellite allocation later is the usual sequence, because the portfolio mandate is what sets the ceiling on everything else.

[PLACEHOLDER: This is the question a prospective client most wants answered. State plainly whether assets sit in accounts in the client's own name, in a pooled account, or with a third-party custodian, and name the custodian. Have your lawyer approve the wording.]

[PLACEHOLDER: Describe your business continuity arrangement and how a client would recover their assets. Refusing to answer this question is a red flag at any firm, including this one.]

No. Client assets are not lent to counterparties for yield, not rehypothecated, and not used as collateral for the firm's own positions. [PLACEHOLDER: describe your custody and cold-storage arrangement in specific terms.]

Holding and trading crypto is not prohibited, but it is not regulated either. There is no licensing regime for crypto investment services, no investor protection fund, and no regulatory route to recover assets if an exchange or custodian fails. Firms handling virtual digital assets must register with FIU-IND as reporting entities for anti-money-laundering purposes — that is a compliance obligation, not a licence or an endorsement.

Gains on virtual digital assets are taxed at 30% plus applicable surcharge and cess. Losses cannot be set off against any other income and cannot be carried forward. A 1% TDS applies to transfers under Section 194S. There is no long-term holding benefit. Confirm your own position with a tax adviser, as rules change.

Ethereum moved to proof of stake in 2022 and can no longer be mined. Ethereum Classic continues to use proof of work, so GPU-class mining hardware still has a network to mine. This is a hardware compatibility decision, not a view that ETC is a better asset than ETH.

No, and neither can anyone else. Mining output depends on the coin price, network difficulty and your electricity tariff. All three can move against you simultaneously, and difficulty has risen over the long run. Any firm offering guaranteed mining returns is either mispricing that risk or absorbing it somewhere you cannot see.

For a long-horizon holding, an SGB usually wins on the arithmetic: it pays 2.5% a year on your original investment, has no storage or making charges, and the capital gain on redemption at maturity is exempt from capital gains tax for individuals. Physical gold makes sense when you specifically want the metal itself. The trade-off is liquidity — an SGB has an eight-year tenor with an exit window from year five.

[PLACEHOLDER: Confirm the current position on new SGB tranches before publishing. If no new tranches are being issued, say so plainly and explain that purchases must be made on the secondary market, where units often trade at a premium to intrinsic value and volumes can be thin.]

Generally no. Futures contracts expire and must be rolled forward, which carries a recurring cost that compounds badly over years. They are also leveraged, so a move against you can require additional funds at short notice. MCX gold is a tactical instrument with a defined time horizon, not a way to hold gold for a decade.

We do not quote an expected return, and you should be sceptical of anyone who does. What we will do is show you what a range of assumptions produces, including bad ones, and size your allocation so that the pessimistic case is survivable.

[PLACEHOLDER: If you publish performance figures, they must be accurate, cover a stated period, be net of fees, and carry the standard caveat. If you do not have an audited track record, say that plainly here rather than omitting the question.]

That depends entirely on your circumstances, but the principle we apply is that a speculative sleeve should be funded from a portion of your portfolio you could lose in full without it changing your plans. For most clients that is a small single-digit percentage, and the mandate caps it in writing.