Stock market regulator SEBI has asked mutual fund houses to declare the number of unique investors in every scheme to ensure de-duplication of folios.

In response to the e-mail communication from SEBI, fund houses had provided the data which were put out on the AMFI (Association of Mutual Funds in India) Web site. According to that data, the mutual fund industry had 3.7 crore unique investors (as of May 2011) and 4.7 crore folios (as of April 2011).

“However, this information was removed from the AMFI Web site on Friday as there was widespread confusion among fund houses over how to capture unique investor details,” said an AMFI official.

The mail, whose contents were shared with Business Line by a fund house official, has an excel sheet with three different illustrations explaining how to count investors.

For instance, if an investor has multiple folios in a single scheme, he will be counted as one. In case he has three folios across three different schemes, he will be counted as three different investors.

In a situation where A and B are the first and second holders in a joint folio and A also holds another folio on his own in the same scheme, then A will be counted as one, and B will not be taken into account at all.

In case, B (and not A) holds a single folio on his own in addition to the joint folio, they would be counted as two.

In case both hold three folios in a particular scheme, one together and one each as individuals, they would be counted as two. The excel sheet is, however, silent on multiple folios across multiple schemes.

“This method doesn't make any sense as it is scheme-focussed and not investor-focussed and does not serve the purpose of de-duplication of investors across schemes,” said a mutual fund official.

No one still knows how many unique investors are present in the mutual fund industry.

raghavendrarao.k@thehindu.co.insneha.p@thehindu.co.in

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