SMALL TOWNS PUSH MF ASSETS TO Rs 20 TRILLION

Led by an over 41 per cent surge in inflows from small towns or the B15 cities, assets under management (AUM) of the mutual fund industry rose 30.35 per cent to Rs 19.97 trillion in July, says a report. "Smaller towns or B15 (beyond top 15 cities) cities accounted for 17.7 per cent of total AUM as of July, thanks to a 41.3 per cent surge to reach past Rs 3.60 trillion in July from Rs 2.55 trillion a year ago helping the industry AUM to grow over 30 per cent to Rs 19.97 trillion," Icra said quoting Amfi data today. According to the report, there is a better balance of equity and non-equity assets at 5:4 in B15 locations compared with 1:2 in the T15 (top 15) cities. Also, the share of direct plans in B15 centres is 22.7 per cent against 45.2 per cent in the T15 cities. The industry AUM had touched Rs 10 trillion in May 2014 and in a short span of three years, it has nearly doubled, the report said. Investors pumped Rs 63,504 crore into mutual funds in July with income, equity (including equity linked savings schemes or ELSS), and balanced funds witnessing the highest inflows. The three categories saw net inflows of Rs 60,084 crore, Rs 12,727 crore and Rs 7,864 crore respectively, the report said. Equity funds (including ELSS) witnessed the highest ever monthly net inflow at Rs 12,727 crore, reflecting a jump of 55.9 per cent month-on-month and 407.9 per cent year-on- year. This comes after more than Rs 70,000 crore investments in equities in fiscal 2017. Net inflows through the SIP route also hit an all-time high of Rs 4,947 crore in July. Data reveal that in the first four months of the current fiscal, total net inflows through SIPs rose to Rs 18,544 crore while 8.23 lakh SIP accounts were added every month on an average with an average ticket size at Rs 3,250 per account. As per the Sebi data, total folio count as of July was 5.94 crore, 2 per cent higher than June. Around 8.36 lakh and 2.10 lakh new folios were added to the equity (including ELSS) and balanced categories, respectively. Surprisingly, the ELSS category added 3.7 lakh new folios in April-July. Folio count dropped by 2,331 and 1,670 in gold ETFs and fund of funds investing overseas, respectively, from June levels. These were the only two categories to witness de- growth in July.