India’s first silver ETF by Benchmark

With the stock markets continuing their downward spiral, investors are on the lookout for different avenues to park their funds, like fixed deposits, Gold ETF and Fixed Maturity Plans. Those looking for novelty can try this.

Enter India’s first Silver ETF (Exchange Traded Fund), courtesy Benchmark Mutual Fund.

Benchmark is not only a specialist in ETFs, but has also been the pioneer behind getting Indians to look at exchange traded funds as a mode of investment. They were the first off the blocks with their Gold ETF, and now the company has filed offer documents with SEBI for a silver exchange traded fund.

The difference, however, lies in the fact that this fund would invest in units of foreign mutual fund schemes, including exchange traded funds investing in silver or securities linked to silver and exchange traded notes whose returns are linked to silver (like Barclays Silver ETF on AMEX, & PowerShares DB Silver fund). Unlike a gold ETF, the fund cannot directly invest in silver due to restrictions imposed by SEBI on custodial services for silver.

Called Silver BeES, each unit will be equivalent to the price of 100 gms of silver, and there would be an entry load of 2.25 % during the NFO.