_Conflict of Interest_ - a highly debated issue, especially in the financial services industry.

I recently picked a copy of an 'Indian Mutual Fund' magazine which has been in existence for over 2 decades. Tonnes of gyan coming out in every issue from the editor & his team on how to invest, where to invest, random thoughts on regulatory & compliance issues, how should advisors work, what to avoid, what should be the compensation structures etc...+ the *Star Rankings* based on an, in house rating mechanism 🙂

Out of curiosity, I started counting the # of advertisements in this issue & with a particular interest on, 'who' are their revenue cash cows 🤔

Data points - 

142 pages - Issue size
30 pages - Full Page Ads 😳
Of which,

23 Full Page Ads are from various Mutual Fund Companies (there are 44 of them in the industry).

7 Full Page Ads are from Housing Finance, Banks & Insurance companies.

That's makes 22% of the magazine content is ads 😳....16% of the 'total pages' are ads from various Mutual Fund companies which probably??? *pay* the magazine.

By the statistics, *76%* of the *total ad pages* are from the mutual fund companies 😳😳

Is there a credibility in the magazine's content ? 

Yes, there can be, if the entire *content* is completely unbiased & consistent in approach. Be it, with the categorisation of the schemes, ranking the schemes, ideation of the industry issues, erratic thought processes of the content contributors etc...

Bottomline, 'there can be revenue streams with a *positive conflict of interest*, meaning, _everyone benefits, without short changing one another_.

But, I suppose that is an *ideal efficient stream of bliss*, which the majority 'service providers & takers' miss by a large margin. 

*A few good men / women, are indeed few*