Investors rush to mutual funds, over 65 lakh folios added in H1 FY'19

New Delhi: Growing investor interest in mutual funds has led to an addition of over 65 lakh new folios in the first six months of the current fiscal, taking the total to an all-time high of 7.78 crore at the end of September. This follows an addition of 1.6 crore investor accounts in 2017-18 fiscal, over 67 lakh folios in 2016-17 and 59 lakh in 2015-16 financial year.

Folios are numbers designated to individual investor accounts, though an investor can have multiple accounts.

According to the data from Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI) on total investor accounts with 41 fund active players, the number of folios rose to a record 7,78,86,596 at the end of September this year, up from 7,13,47,301 at the end March 2018, registering a gain of 65.39 lakh.

Over the last few years, investor accounts have increased following robust contribution from retail investors, especially from smaller towns and huge inflows in equity schemes.

Folios in equity and equity-linked saving schemes (ELSS) grew by 56 lakh to 5.91 crore. Besides, folios in balanced category surged by close to 4 lakh to 63 lakh during the period under review. Further, folios in income funds rose by 5.2 lakh to over 1.12 crore.

"There has been a robust growth in the number of folios, which now stands at 7.75 crore," Amfi CEO N S Venkatesh said.

Overall, mutual funds have seen an inflow of over Rs 45,000 crore during April-September period of the current fiscal (2018-19), while equity schemes alone attracted an impressive inflow of Rs 60,475 crore.

However, a net withdrawal of Rs 85,280 crore was witnessed from income schemes -- a type of debt mutual funds that deliver a steady income. Besides, gold ETFs continued to see a net outflow of Rs 274 crore.

Mutual funds are investment vehicles made up of a pool of funds collected from a large number of investors.