MF Update: Equity inflows declines by 55 per cent in March

The total mutual fund assets base has surged over ~Rs. 22 trillion in 2017-18. This was mainly due to a vibrant secondary market, investor awareness campaigns like Mutual fund sahi hai and strong participation, especially from smaller town investors.

But the mutual fund industry witnessed huge redemptions during the month. The net inflows into equity mutual fund schemes have reached to Rs. 66.6 billion in March down by ~55 per cent from Rs. 146.8 billion in February 2018.

The Indian markets as well as global markets have been volatile since the last couple of months which has hit the inflows. Experts are of the opinion that after this temporary blip in the inflows, mutual fund industry may see robust growth in AUM in the coming days with increasing awareness about mutual funds and their returns.

During the period, ELSS witnessed higher inflows than that of other equity schemes. ELSS are used for tax-saving purposes and generally see higher inflows towards the end of the financial year. In March 2018, net inflows into ELSS stood at Rs. 37 billion as against Rs. 15.8 billion in the month of February 2018. Some of the debt funds have also witnessed outflows in the last one month. Liquid funds, income funds have witnessed major outflows that is of Rs.550 billion and Rs. 137 billion. There were net outflows of Rs 4.75 billion from GILT (government securities) funds.

Equity assets under management (AUM stood at Rs. 7.5 trillion, down by ~5 per cent from Rs. 7.82 trillion in the month of January 2018. As per AMFI's March 2018 data, the overall industry assets under management (AUM) stood at Rs. 21.36 trillion as against 22.2 trillion in February 2018 and 22.46 trillion in January 2018.