The country’s smaller towns or B15 (beyond top 15 cities) locations accounted for 18.8 per cent of the total industry assets under management (AUM) at the end of February 2018, said ICRA in its monthly update.

The total folio count at the end of February 2018 at 6.99 crore, also showed a growth of 2.3 per cent compared with January, ICRA said quoting data from SEBI.

“In the last 12 months, B15 towns witnessed AUM growth of 41.7 per cent or ₹1.28 lakh crore to reach ₹4.36 lakh crore at the end of February 2018, compared with ₹3.08 lakh crore in the year-ago period,” it said.

Non-associate distributors contributed ₹11.86 lakh crore to the current month or 51 per cent of the total AUM. In February, the share of direct plans in B15 towns stood at 20.4 per cent against 45.6 per cent in T15 (or Top 15) cities.

Dips to ₹22.2 lakh cr

According to the Association of Mutual Funds in India, the AUM of the mutual fund industry stood at ₹22.2 lakh crore in February, down from ₹22.41 lakh crore in January 2018.

Compared with January 2018, there was a marginal decline in AUM across all categories except liquid and infrastructure debt funds.

AUM under equity (including ELSS), balanced funds, other ETFs for February 2018 declined marginally to ₹10.21 lakh crore as against ₹10.36 lakh crore in January. Compared with February 2017, the asset base of MFs surged approximately 60 per cent from ₹6.37 lakh crore.

SIPs drive inflows

However, what is heartening is the net inflows into equity mutual fund schemes. Despite the stock markets declining, net inflows into equity funds in February gained 5.7 per cent at ₹16,268 crore over the preceding month. Moreover, compared with last year figure, it was a surge of whopping 150 per cent. The increase was mainly driven by sustained inflows through systematic investment plans.

According to data from AMFI, cumulative SIP contribution has been ₹53,646 crore so far in FY18 (data updated till Jan 2018).

However, net inflows in the balanced category came in at a one-year low of ₹5,026 crore. The decline could be because of the government announcing the imposition of dividend distribution tax in Budget 2018-19, said ICRA. The income category witnessed net outflows to the tune of ₹9,799 crore, possibly because of rise in yields.

The total net inflow for February stood at ₹12,092 crore with the maximum inflow of ₹14,683 crore witnessed in the equity category.

The MF industry added approximately 15.72 lakh new folios in February of which 13.65 lakh were in the equity segment (including ELSS). About 1.8 lakh new folios were added to the balanced category.

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