MFs equity folio count up by 1.6 lakh in April

New Delhi: Equity mutual funds witnessed an addition of nearly 1.6 lakh investor accounts or folios in the first month of the current fiscal, primarily on account of strong participation from retail investors.

This is on top of an addition of 43 lakh folios in 2015-16 and 25 lakh in 2014-15. In the past two years, investor accounts increased mainly due to robust contribution from smaller towns.

Folios are numbers designated for individual investor accounts, though one investor can have multiple accounts.

According to the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) data on investor accounts with 43 fund houses, the number of equity folios jumped to 36,183,250 last month from 36,025,062 in March 2016, a gain of 1.58 lakh.

Growing participation from retail investors and huge inflows in equity schemes have helped in increasing the folio counts, experts said.

Mutual funds have reported net inflows of Rs 4,438 crore in equity schemes in April, making it the highest in five months.
The inflow is in line with the BSE's benchmark Sensex rising 265 points or 1.04 per cent during April.

Mutual funds are investment vehicles made up of a pool of funds collected from a large number of investors. The funds are invested in stocks, bonds and money market instruments, among others.