Equity mutual funds added over 11 lakh investor accounts or folios in the first five months of the current fiscal, mainly due to 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 have increased due mainly 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 42 active fund houses, the number of equity folios jumped to 37,158,598 at the end of August from 36,025,062 in March-end, a gain of 11.33 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 over Rs 18,000 crore in equity schemes in the first five months (April—August) of the current fiscal 2016-17.

Inflows in equity schemes can be attributed to a slew of factors such as a well spread monsoon, better corporate results, smooth progress on the GST Bill and positive data from the US economy, Bajaj Capital Group CEO and Director, Anil Chopra, said.

Besides, the monthly SIP (systematic investment plans) book has crossed 1 crore and monthly net contributions through SIP alone were over Rs 3,000 crore, leading to higher positive net inflows in equity markets, he added.

The robust inflow has pushed the assets under management (AUM) of equity mutual funds to a record high of Rs 4.67 lakh crore at the end of August from Rs 4.5 lakh crore in July-end.

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.

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