Mutual funds add over 72 lakh folios in 2019-20, tally nears 9 cr mark

Mutual fund industry has added more than 72 lakh folios in 2019-20 taking the total tally to near 9 crore mark.

However, the pace of growth in folio numbers dropped in the just concluded financial year 2019-20 as compared to preceding two fiscal, which suggests investors' understanding about market risks associated with such schemes.

Industry experts attributed the trend to decline in investors account in debt oriented schemes as they were spooked by credit events in fixed income market.

In comparison, the industry had added 1.13 crore investors account in 2018-19 and 1.6 crore accounts in 2017-18, according to data from Association of Mutual Funds in India.

The mutual fund space saw an addition of over 67 lakh folios in 2016-17 and 59 lakh in 2015-16.

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

According to the data, the number of folios with 44 fund houses rose to 8.97 crore at the end of March 2020 from 8.24 crore in March 2019, registering a gain of 72.89 lakh folios.

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

Investor account in equity oriented schemes surged by over 15 lakh to 6.44 crore at the end of past fiscal from 6.29 crore in March 2019.

However, debt-oriented scheme folios count dropped by 45 lakh to 71.78 lakh.

Within the debt category, liquid funds continued to top the chart in terms of number of folios at 18.15 lakh, followed by low duration fund at 9.64 lakh fund houses.

The 44-player mutual fund industry has assets under management (AUM) of Rs 22.26 lakh crore at the end of March this year, as compared to Rs 23.8 lakh crore in March 2019.