Mutual funds added 260,000 investors in Nov; total reached 86.5 million

The mutual fund industry has added more than 2.6 lakh folios in November taking the total tally to 8.65 crore, which suggests investors' understanding about market risks associated with such schemes.

In comparison, the industry had added 6 lakh folios in October, 3.45 lakh in September, 4.8 lakh in August and more than 10 lakh in July.

Folios are numbers designated to individual investor accounts. An investor can have multiple folios.

According to data from Association of Mutual Funds in India, the number of folios with 44 fund houses rose to 8,65,18,585 at the end of November from 8,62,56,880 in the end of October, registering a gain of 2,61,705 folios.

Industry experts said the addition of folios indicates investors' understanding about market risks associated with the mutual fund schemes.

However, the pace of growth in folio numbers has dropped last month compared to October mainly due to lower influx in equities

Number of folios under the equity and equity-linked saving schemes rose by 1.2 lakh to 6.21 crore in November-end, which is much lower than 3 lakh added in the preceding month.

The debt-oriented scheme folios count went up by 5.4 lakh to 70.12 lakh.

Within the debt category, liquid funds continued to top the chart in terms of number of folios at 17.45 lakh, followed by low duration fund at 9.7 lakh fund houses.

Mutual fund houses witnessed an overall inflow of Rs 54,419 crore last month as compared to Rs 1.33 lakh crore in October.

Among debt-oriented schemes, overnight funds -- invest in securities with a maturity of one day-- received flows worth about Rs 20,650 crore, the highest among the fixed-income segment last month.

Net inflows into equity mutual fund schemes dropped to Rs 1,690 crore in November from Rs 6,015 crore in the preceding month.

The 44-player industry's assets under management (AUM) rose to an all time high of Rs 27.04 lakh crore by November end from Rs 26.33 lakh crore in October-end.