MF industry folio influx hits 3-month high in Oct

Amid an uptick in the equity market, the mutual fund industry has added more than 6 lakh investors' accounts in October, making it the highest addition in the last three months.

In comparison, the industry had added 3.45 lakh new folios 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 the Association of Mutual Funds in India, the number of folios with 44 fund houses rose to 8,62,56,880 at the end of October, from 8,56,26,244 at the end of September, registering a gain of 6.3 lakh folios.

This is in line with the BSE's benchmark Sensex gaining nearly 4 per cent last month.

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

The number of folios under the equity and equity-linked saving schemes rose by 3 lakh to 6.21 crore in October-end as compared to 6.18 crore at the end of the preceding month.

The debt-oriented scheme folios count went up by 1.05 lakh to 68.72 lakh.

Within the debt category, liquid funds continued to top the chart in terms of the number of folios at 17.12 lakh, followed by a low duration fund at 9.36 lakh.

Mutual fund houses witnessed an overall inflow of Rs 1.33 lakh crore last month after witnessing a redemption of Rs 1.52 trillion in September. The huge inflow could be attributed to debt-oriented schemes, which witnessed an infusion of Rs 1.2 lakh crore.

Among debt-oriented schemes, liquid funds with investments in cash assets such as treasury bills, certificates of deposit and commercial paper for shorter horizon saw an infusion of Rs 93,203 crore last month as compared to an outflow of Rs 1.4 trillion in September.

Besides, equity mutual funds witnessed a net inflow of around Rs 6,015 crore last month.

The inflow has pushed the asset base of the MF industry, comprising 44 players, by 7.4 per cent to over Rs 26 lakh crore at October-end from Rs 24.5 lakh crore at end-September.