Page 20 - Banking Finance August 2017

MUTUAL FUND

MUTUAL FUND

NEWS
NEWS
NEWS
NEWS
NEWS

Mutual funds asset base from small towns grows by Mutual fund folios hit
46% record 5.8 crore at June

Due to initiatives taken by market watchdog Sebi and AMFI, the mutual funds 2017
asset base from small towns has surged 46%
to Rs 3.5 trillion by June-end. According to With strong participation from retail
latest data available with Association of Mu- investors,
the num-
tual Funds in India, the mutual funds' assets
under management (AUM) from B15 loca- ber of fo-
tions - small towns beyond top 15 (T15) cities lios in
Mutual
- grew from Rs 2.42 trillion in June-end 2016
to Rs3.54 trillion at the end of June 2017. Fund has grown by over 93 lakh to
5.82 crore at the end of June 2017.
"The increase in investor education programmes has resulted in increasing in- This is an significant increase since last
vestor awareness and many first time investors from such towns are investing one year.
into mutual funds," Fundsindia.com founder and COO Srikanth Meenakshi said.
According to data released by Secu-
"Indian mutual fund industry is going through a very exciting growth phase and rities and Exchange Board of India on
advertising campaigns started by Sebi and Amfi have helped in increasing pen- total investor accounts with 42 active
etration of mutual funds in smaller cities," Vidya Bala, Head of MF Research at fund houses, the number of folios
Fundsindia.com said. rose to a record 5,82,30,384 at the
He further said Systematic investment plans (SIPs) have been the preferred route end of last month, from 4,89,24,391
for many investors to invest in mutual funds. To make the move attractive, Sebi in June end 2016, a gain of 93.06 lakh.
allowed more incentives for distribution of funds in B15 (beyond top 15 cities). The total number of investor ac-
Currently, B15 accounts for 18% of the total assets of the industry. Besides, these counts stood at 5.54 crore at the end
locations have a better balance of equity and non-equity assets. of March 2017. The folios are num-

Interestingly, major portion of direct investments were in non-equity oriented bers designated to individual investor
schemes where institutional investors dominate. B15 are the locations beyond accounts.
top 15 (T15) cities namely - New Delhi (including NCR), Mumbai (including Thane "The increase in folios has come pre-
and Navi Mumbai), Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad, Baroda, dominantly from the retail category
Chandigarh, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kanpur, Lucknow, Panjim, Pune and Surat. as is evident by the strong double
Around 26% of assets held by individual investors is from B15 cities. Institutional digit growth in folios in equity, bal-
assets are mostly concentrated in T15 locations, accounting for a over 90% of anced and debt categories," Vidya
the total. Further, about 9% of the retail investors chose to invest directly, while Bala, Head of MF Research at
over 17% of HNI assets were invested directly. FundsIndia.com said.

20 | 2017 | AUGUST | BANKING FINANCE

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