Indian mutual fund industry showed remarkable resilience in the face of declining currency, increasing oil prices and market volatility by reaching close to the quarter lakh crore mark for the first time, shows the recent AMFI data. While the month end AUM stood at Rs. 25.20 lakh crore, the average for the month was slightly lower at Rs. 24.70 lakh crore.
In the last decade, the mutual fund industry has grown by nearly 5 times from Rs. 5.45 lakh crore on August 31, 2008 to Rs. 25.20 lakh crore as on August 31, 2018. The growth has been more aggressive in the last five years with the industry AUM increasing three fold from Rs. 7.66 lakh crore (on August 31, 2013). In fact, after touching the Rs. 10 lakh crore mark in May 2014, the industry has been beating one milestone after other.
Experts believe that the customer centric regulations by SEBI and AMFI’s initiatives have played a pivotal role in bringing customers from smaller cities into the mutual fund’s fold.
In addition, there has a continuous increase in new folios. As of August end, the industry had 7.66 crore folios of which 6.41 crore were in pure equity, ELSS and balanced schemes. Since retail participation is higher in equity schemes than debt schemes, willingness of retail investors to invest in India’s growth story even when faced with bouts uncertain markets has grown substantially, believes N S Venkatesh, Chief Executive, AMFI.
