49 connected strategy for asian wealth management ^Top equity-focused funds, becoming increasingly comfortable purchasing investment products higher in the risk spectrum without the need for face-to-face interactions. Furthermore, this new connection architecture is opening up new ways of interact- ing with ‘digital native’, connected consumers. Take for instance, mutual funds live streaming52 in China where fund managers elaborate on the rewards (and presum- ably risks!) of their fund offerings, and viewers of the livestream can connect to a superapp such as Alipay and place trades right away. This connects and gives scale and direct access to fund managers in a way that has been previously infeasible. • In India the role of intermediaries in channeling household savings to financial mar- kets through mutual funds has declined over the last decade as direct channels have gained share (see Figure 23). Figure 23: Connected channels continue to disintermediate the Indian mutual funds industry53 52 Inside the Cutthroat World of China Mutual Fund Livestreaming, Bloomberg, 2020 53 “Mutual fund investors give middlemen the slip”, The Economic Times, 2020 0% 2% 40% 60% 80% 100% Other Direct channels Independent financial advisors Banks, national & regional distributors 2020 2019 2013 Sales mix by channel, % +5 pts +22 pts Change 2013-20 -2 pts -25 pts 57% 4% 23% 16% 10% 42% 14% 34% 9% 45% 14% 32% Source: Economic Times, 2020