MFs plan to offer SIP variants to attract more investors

Mutual fund (MF) houses are mulling to launch more variants of systemic investment plans (SIPs) to attract investors as growth in the sector picks up.
The variants include SIP top-ups and Smart SIPs.
SIP top-up will be available in two forms -- variable and fixed. Variable SIP top-ups allow investors to increase their monthly instalments by certain percentage points on a monthly basis. In Smart SIPs, investors are free to increase their monthly instalments in multiples of Rs 500 or so.
Enthused by the 100 per cent growth in its SIPs in the year gone-by, Kotak Asset Management Company is now looking at launching different variants of the plans. With an AUM of Rs 63,000 crore, Kotak AMC is ranked among the top 10 fund houses in the country.

"Our SIPs have grown by 100 per cent in the last fiscal year, driven by better fund performance and the efforts made by the company," Kotak AMC Managing Director and Chief Executive Nilesh Shah told PTI on the sidelines of an industry event here today.
"Now we are planning to come up with different variants of SIPs in the later part of the year, which include Smart SIPs and SIP Top-ups," he said.

ICICI Prudential Asset Management Company, which is likely to come up with its new SIP top-up offerings shortly, has made changes in the scheme information document and the key information memorandum of all the schemes to allow top-up facility.

Last week, Mirae Asset Management launched a SIP top-up scheme.
Mirae Asset Chief Investment Officer Gopal Agrawal said, "We launched SIP top-up last week in which we are advising our investors to increase their SIP amount every year in multiple of Re 1."
According to an industry estimate, SIP folios in the MF industry increased by 30 per cent in March to 93.44 lakh from 71.70 lakh a year ago, while the inflows jumped 39 per cent during the same period to Rs 2,747 crore from Rs 1,971 crore a year ago.