Many small towns such as Trichur, Puducherry, Hubli, Tiruchi and Tirunelveli have made it to the 6-35 rank category, sometimes beating bigger rivals.

For instance, Kerala's Trichur, with a 0.54 per cent share in the income fund category, is ahead of Kochi, Coimbatore and Lucknow. In the equity fund list, Tirchur has a 1.02 per cent share, ahead of Lucknow, Kochi, Kanpur, etc.

In balanced funds, smaller cities such as Thiruvananthapuram and Surat have pushed back bigger metros such as Chennai and Bangalore. In the Gold ETF, Trichur is ahead of cities such as Thiruvananthapuram, Coimbatore and Patna. Even Tirunelveli has grabbed a slot with a 0.39 per cent share in the Gold ETF list.

Explaining the rare insight provided by the UTI MF's geographical investment data, Mr C.J. George, Managing Director, Geojit BNP Paribas Financial Services Ltd, Kochi, said: “Most importantly, this is directly proportionate to the financial literacy of the community and the reach of distribution and metros ranked better in these parameters.”

He said he was not surprised by Mumbai's dominance in both equity and MF investments. Early industrialisation and joint stock form of business organisation resulted in the formation of the first stock exchange of Asia in Mumbai, which contributed to the growth of an investment community.

Mr George, on how small cities such as Puducherry and Trichur were ahead of their big city rivals in equity investment, said traditionally Trichur was ahead of other places in financial literacy. During the 1960s (before the bank nationalisation) “Trichur had the highest number of commercial banks registered among all cities in India.”

Even today, it is home to the registered offices of three scheduled commercial banks – South Indian Bank, Dhanlaxmi Bank and Catholic Syrian Bank. It was the first city in Kerala where UTI started its own branch office before Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram. IReferring to the investor profile of his own company, he said it had branches in small towns such as Gadag in Karnataka, Kolencherry in Kerala and Kandwa in Madhya Pradesh from where investors operate.

It was not the wealth of the community that mattered. It's financial literacy and financial maturity.

Mr George, on why Jaipur topped the list in UTI MF's GILT fund category (AUM Rs 431 crore), said it was “difficult to draw a conclusion” unless the number of folios and the average AUM was available. It could be that a few large investors tilted the numbers.

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