Mutual fund investor accounts rise by 3.5 lakh so far in FY15 led by equity folios

Mutual fund houses have registered a rise of over 3.5 lakh investor accounts in the first eight months of the ongoing 2014-15 financial year, driven by addition in equity fund folios.

The addition comes after fund houses lost about 33 lakh investor accounts in the entire previous fiscal.

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

Explaining the reason behind such a rise in retail folios, industry officials said growth was mainly on account of addition in equity fund folios, which was supported by sharp rally in the domestic stock markets.

According to data provided by market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on total investor accounts with 45 fund houses, the number of folios rose to 3.99 crore at the end of November 30, 2014 from 3.95 crore in the previous financial year (2013-14), registering a gain of 3.54 lakh.

Besides, the fund houses have clocked Rs 1.55 lakh crore net inflows in various schemes during April-October period.

The benchmark Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) index Sensex surged by around 28 per cent during the eriod under review on the back of hopes of economic reforms and heavy capital inflows.

The equity category saw addition of over eight lakh folios to over 3 crore investors at the end of October 31, 2014. The segment's first rise in folios was in the month of April after it reported a consistent decline in investor accounts in the past four years.