Equity MF folio rises 2.4 million in Apr-Oct

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Equity mutual funds witnessed an addition of about 2.43 million investor accounts or folios in the first seven months of the current financial year (2015-16), primarily on account of strong retail participation.

According to the Securities and Exchange Board of India data on investor accounts with 44 fund houses, the number of equity folios jumped to about 34.1 million last month from nearly 31.6 million at March-end, a rise of 2.5 million.

April 2014 saw the first rise in more than four years.

This follows an addition of 2.5 million folios for the entire past financial year, 2014-15. Folios are numbers designated for individual investor accounts, though one investor can have multiple accounts.

Prior to 2014-15, the equity MF sector had seen a continuous closure of folios since March 2009, following the global financial crisis in late 2008.

Before 2014-15, there was a complete lull in equity inflows as well as generation of new folios, but in the past one year, equity markets have come back to life and yielded solid returns.

Industry experts said heightened investor interest has led to a sharp increase in retail folios.

It is the optimism of investors because of which the folios in equity segment have increased.

Besides, increased participation by retail investors in equities has led to an increase in folio numbers, experts said.

Mutual funds have reported net inflows of Rs 59,935 crore in equity schemes in the first seven months of 2015-16, helping the industry grow the folio count.

Besides, addition in equity folios helped increase overall base to 4.48 crore in October from 4.17 crore at the end of March.