In the financial year 2021, over 81 lakh investors opened their mutual fund accounts. With the massive addition, the total number of accounts in the country now stands at 9.78 crores. In comparison, the mutual fund industry had added 72.89 lakh investor accounts in the financial year 2020, according to the data by the Association of Mutual Funds in India. Experts are now hoping that the healthy growth in the mutual fund industry would continue in the ongoing financial year. However, the mutual fund industry is yet to break its record of 1.6 crore account additions in a single year that came in FY18. In FY19, over 1.13 crore investor accounts were recorded.
Investors are increasingly acknowledging the importance of making investments in mutual funds for meeting financial goals both long term and short term, Kaustubh Belapurkar, Director Manager Research, Morningstar India said. The awareness about investing in mutual funds has been on the rise over the last many years with the investor awareness programs, groundwork done by mutual funds, financial advisors, and distributors in educating and shepherding investors through their investing journey, he added.
Prateek Mehta, co-founder and Chief Business Officer of Scripbox, said there are a number of reasons owing to the folios growth, and some of the significant ones are due to the surge in digitization driven by the proliferation of technology, financialization of savings, and ease of transactions. In addition, there is a clear migration from real estate and gold to financial products, he added.
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Harshad Chetanwala, the co-founder of Mywealthgrowth.com, said the mutual fund industry should do well this year too, as it is one of the best options to invest across asset classes for every segment of investors. There is potential for the mutual fund industry to reach out to a wider investor base despite the growth in the last few years. There are 9.78 crore folios at present and if we consider an average of 3 or 4 folios per investor, there are just 2.5 crores to 3.25 crore unique investors in mutual funds.
Also as things get settle down after the current Covid crisis, the personal-finance and savings of many investors will get back on track again, this will also help the industry, he added.
