Retail investors pouring Rs 4,000 crore a month in mutual funds

FIIs have invested roughly Rs 50,000 crore over the past five months

Against the backdrop of improving sentiment and the equity markets hitting highs, the domestic retail investors have been investing nearly Rs 4,000 crore a month in various mutual fund instruments.

“The equity sentiment has been positive in India and retail investors have been bullish in their investment decisions, especially in systematic investment plan (SIPs),” Principal PNB Asset Management Company Chief Investment Officer Rajat Jain told Business Standard.

SIP is a periodic investment vehicle which allows retail investors to put their money in small amounts in financial instruments, instead of lump sum.

Besides, the Tier-II and -III towns were showing a lot of promise and developing as good equity and investment hubs, he said. Jain further added that smaller towns in Uttar Pradesh were also emerging on the investment scene viz Allahabad, Gorakhpur, Varanasi, Agra, Aligarh, Meerut, etc.

Jain informed that the fund industry had clocked a cumulative growth of nearly 50 per cent over the past two years and the total asset under management (AUM) of the domestic mutual fund industry had touched the level of Rs 18 lakh crore. During the 2016 calendar year, investment of nearly Rs 3 lakh crore was clocked by domestic fund companies.

Meanwhile, the foreign institutional investors (FII) were also bullish about the India growth story and had poured in roughly Rs 50,000 crore over the past five months (Jan-May) in the current 2017 calendar year.

Principal PNB is a joint venture between US-based Principal Group and public sector Punjab National Bank, which is a minority shareholder in the joint venture company. At present, it has AUM of nearly Rs 6,000 crore with about 4,00,000 customers pan India.

“The proposed Goods and Services Tax (GST) is likely to stoke the funds space in the next few years, since it would transform the largely informal economy into formal economy in India,” Jain noted.