The mutual fund industry’s assets under management inched closer to ₹21 lakh crore as end of June quarter with better participation by retail investors especially in equity-based schemes.

Overall AUM of the industry increased 7.56 per cent in the September quarter to ₹20.95 lakh crore against ₹19.52 lakh crore logged in the preceding June quarter, according to the data released by the Association of Mutual Funds in India.

SIP hogs limelight The industry has been promoting investment in equity market in small amount through systematic investment plan (SIP). The industry has collected ₹23,750 crore between April and August through SIP. The monthly inflow through this route peaked to ₹5,206 crore in August.

Investments through SIP last fiscal was at ₹43,921 crore.

Despite weak economy, the bullish trend in equity market supported investors sentiment and restrained them from booking profit, said an analyst.

In fact, the inflows through SIP has increased 16 per cent in July to ₹4,947 crore from ₹4,269 crore in April. The mutual fund industry had added about 8.55 lakh SIP accounts every month on an average so far this fiscal, with an average SIP size of about ₹3,275 per SIP account. Overall, mutual funds have about 1.59 crore operational SIP accounts as of August-end.

Of the 42 fund houses, as many as 37 registered a growth in asset base, while two saw decline in their AUMs. The AMFI data did not include assets base of Sahara MF, Escorts MF and SREI MF.

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