Investment terms, in plain English
Words that appear on Indian investment statements and in VestBook.
- Asset allocation
How a family's holdings are split across kinds of assets, such as equity, debt, gold and cash, shown as a share of the total value.
- Basket
A VestBook term: a named group of holdings you choose, across family members and platforms, such as Retirement.
- CAS (Consolidated Account Statement)
A single statement listing investments under one PAN. Mutual fund CAS comes from CAMS and KFintech; depository CAS comes from NSDL or CDSL.
- CDSL and NSDL
India's two securities depositories. They hold shares and other securities in electronic form in demat accounts.
- Demat account
An account that holds shares, ETFs, bonds and some mutual fund units in electronic form, opened through a depository participant such as a broker or bank.
- EPF
The Employees' Provident Fund, a retirement savings scheme run by EPFO, with contributions from the employee and the employer.
- ETF
An exchange-traded fund: a fund whose units are bought and sold on a stock exchange like shares.
- Folio number
The account number a fund house gives an investor. One person can have several folios.
- ISIN
International Securities Identification Number, a 12-character code that identifies a security such as a share, bond or fund plan.
- Maturity date
The date on which a fixed deposit or bond ends and its money is paid out.
- RTA
Registrar and transfer agent. CAMS and KFintech are the RTAs that keep investor records for most Indian mutual funds.
- SIP
Systematic investment plan: a fixed amount invested in a mutual fund at regular intervals.
- UAN
Universal Account Number, the number EPFO gives each member, which links the EPF accounts from different employers.
- XIRR
A yearly rate of return that accounts for the date and size of each investment and withdrawal. VestBook shows it only where the statement includes the transactions it needs.