Mumbai, Aug. 8 -- India's mutual fund industry body has tightened rules governing distributor switches and commission payouts to curb misuse and improve transparency. The Association of Mutual Funds in India (Amfi) issued revised guidelines on 30 July that give investors more time to approve or reject changes in their distributor and extend the cooling-off period for commission payments to new brokers.

Effective 11 August, investors will now have 11 calendar days to review and act on requests to change the distributor (ARN) linked to their mutual fund folios. A switch will only be processed if the investor explicitly approves it within this window. If no action is taken, the request will lapse.

More significantly, Amfi has doubled the c...