Page 17 - Banking Finance JANUARY 2017

P. 17

MUTUAL FUND



Now, a debit card for MF industry grows at pace of Rs 4 lakh crore asset base
mutual funds Helped by growing interest from retail investors and aggressive buying of stocks,
mutual fund industry grew at a rapid pace in 2016 with
Bangaluru based Scripbox, a leading an addition of almost Rs 4 lakh crore, or 28 per cent, to
online investment its asset base and is looking to cross Rs 20-trillion mark.
service, has an-
Having already attained a record asset under manage-
nounced the
ment (AUM) of Rs 16.5 lakh crore in November, the fund
launch of a new houses are looking to end the year 2016 with a total of Rs 17.3 trillion. Fund
product, Any houses are also upbeat about the industry's performance in the upcoming year
Time Cash that
allows customers to withdraw cash while expecting investment from new investors to fuel the growth of the sector.
instantly from their mutual fund in- Also, demonetisation of high-value currency notes could have a positive impact,
vestment using a debit card that is with the industry betting big on conversion of cash assets into financial invest-
issued against the investment. This ments. "The assets under management of the mutual fund industry is quite likely
card can be used at any ATM or Point to cross the Rs 20 lakh crore mark in next year," Quantum Mutual Fund Chief
of Sale device that accepts Visa cards. Executive Jimmy Patel said.
"This product is ideal for youngsters, RBI maintains status quo on money market rate
since they are worried about locking The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has surprised the money market by maintaining
up their money in investments," says status quo on key rates in its policy review. Most bankers
CEO E. R. Ashok Kumar. "They can were expecting a rate cut of 25-50 basis points.
move their entire salary to this prod-
uct. Since the invested money is not "Investors should focus more on accrual funds, short-term
locked even for a day, they can with- income funds or any kind of funds with an average matu-
rity of three to four years," says Sudhir Agrawal, Execu-
draw cash instantly." Scripbox has
tive Vice President-cum-Fund Manager, UTI Mutual Fund. Rate cut is always a
collaborated with Reliance Mutual happy news for debt mutual fund investors. When the rates come down, bond
Fund for this product and the debit prices go up. This would prop up the Net Asset Value (NAV) of debt mutual funds,
card is issued by HDFC Bank.
especially long-term debt funds.
The proprietary algorithm of
Scripbox narrows down over 8,000 Equity mutual funds add 25 lakh investor accounts in
mutual funds to 10 pre-selected April-November FY17
funds in four categories, Any Time More than 25 lakh new investor accounts or folios have been added to the eq-
Cash being one of them. The other uity mutual funds during the first eight months of the current fiscal, primarily on
three are Long Term, Short Term account of strong participation from retail investors. This is over and above an
and Tax Saving. addition of 43 lakh folios in 2015-16 and 25 lakh in 2014-15.

BANKING FINANCE | JANUARY | 2017 | 17

12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22