Notwithstanding the crisis in debt-oriented schemes, the mutual fund industry is targeting to increase the assets under management (AUM) four-fold to ₹100-lakh crore over the next decade from ₹25-lakh crore now, and the investor base to 10 crore from the existing two crore, a five-fold rise, over the same period.

The industry expects to achieve the ambitious target by penetrating more into beyond Top-30 cities and diversifying the distribution outreach by leveraging on the wide network of banks, post offices across the country and augmenting the distribution base by another four lakh.

The industry will also strengthen direct and digital channels to achieve inclusion through technology-led simplified entry-level on-boarding, and offering simple savings solutions to add eight crore new investors and accomplish the ₹100-lakh crore AUM, according to vision document.

Ajay Tyagi, Chairman, SEBI, said given that the mutual fund industry has a long way to go in reaching out to investors across the country, it is now imperative for each segment within the fund houses to exercise self-restraint, improve self-regulation and ensure better risk management to take the industry to the next level of growth.

$5-trillion economy vision

Nimesh Shah, Chairman, AMFI, said the industry’s AUM target would ride on the government’s objective of transforming India into a $5-trillion economy, which is now finding rising global resonance, in addition to inherent robust self-propelled growth prospects.

NS Venkatesh, Chief Executive, AMFI, said while Indians are increasingly moving away from physical to financial savings, the realisation that to beat inflation they have to change from traditional saving to equities and mutual funds is happening at a much slower pace.

Amish Mehta, Chief Operating Officer, CRISIL, said despite witnessing a tumultuous phase last year due to high volatility in the equity markets, retail investors continued to catalyse the growth of MF industry through systematic investment plans (SIPs).

Alpesh Shah, Managing Partner, Boston Consulting Group India, said India’s asset management industry became the 17th largest in the world in 2018, up from the 22nd in 2008.

However, the industry still has just over two crore investors with 7 per cent penetration in the 27.5 crore households in India.

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