With market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) announcing the discontinuation of solution-oriented funds and the introduction of a new category — life cycle funds — investors are assessing what the shift means for their mutual fund portfolios and long-term financial goals. Life cycle funds will follow a glide-path strategy, dynamically allocating investments across asset classes such as equity, debt, InvITs, ETCDs, and gold and silver ETFs. These schemes will be launched with target maturities of 30, 25, 20, 15, 10 and 5 years. In contrast, solution-oriented funds — typically labelled as retirement or children’s funds — carried a mandatory lock-in of at least five years and followed a relatively fixed asset allocation strategy.