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The MF industry has registered 76920 new SIPs in hybrid funds across CAMS serviced fund houses in February 2022, shows CAMS data. CAMS serviced fund houses account for 70% of the total industry AUM.
The data reveals that mutual fund distributors are much ahead of direct plan platforms by a huge margin in terms of incremental SIP accounts in hybrid funds across six categories.
Of these 76,920 SIPs in hybrid funds, mutual fund distributors including individual MFDs, banks and NDs have opened 81% SIPs. In fact, MF distributors enjoy a dominant position in both T30 as well as B30 locations.
Swarup Mohanty, CEO, Mirae Asset Mutual Fund feels that many investors prefer investing through MFDs. He said, “Investors seek comfort in investing their money through distributors as they value handholding by them. Overall, the contribution of MFDs is in line with the broad industry trend. However, direct platforms are also picking up due to ease of investment.”
DP Singh, Chief Business Officer, SBI Mutual Fund points out that the share of direct SIPs in hybrid funds has grown. “Until a few year ago, the contribution of direct plans was around 8-10%. But they now account for almost 20% of the incremental SIP accounts. This is largely due to emergence of online platforms and growth in number of RIAs.”
The report further reveals that 92% of the gross inflows in hybrid funds through SIPs has come from T30 cities.
Talking about the high concentration of hybrid funds in T30 cities, Singh said, “Within the hybrid category, if we remove arbitrage funds, these figures could be different. Many HNIs and corporates invest in arbitrage funds to park short term money.”
Raghav Iyengar, Chief Business Officer, Axis Mutual Fund attributes this to large number of MFDs in T30 cities. “Number of active distributors are higher in T30 cities compared to B30 location. Also, many MFDs have been recommending conservative hybrid, aggressive hybrid and balanced advantage funds due to lower yields in debt funds and higher volatility in equity markets.”
