Growth of Mutual Fund Industry in India

Abstract

Mutual funds (MFs) are the financial intermediaries that collect the savings from the investors and invest them into securities in capital market and earn income from it. The earning is distributed among the investors in the form of return on investment and they reinvest some portion of their earnings again in MFs. Professionals manage such funds for consideration. Through MFs, an investor can have exposure to various investment avenues such as money market, fixed income to high yield debts, gold and other commodities, real estate equities, etc. Even investment in India and abroad is now accessible through investment in MFs in India. Unit Trust of India (UTI) was the first mutual fund in India established on 1964. Mutual fund industry in India received a boost when it was thrown open to private sector in 1993 and to foreign MFs in 1994. Till December 2014, there were 45 MFs in India with seven in public sector and 38 in the private sector. The study is conducted to find out the major players in the mutual funds industry in India both in public and private sectors. It also investigates the various resources from which they mobilised the funds and trends of their investments in the various schemes offered by them. This study is an attempt to find out the growth of mutual funds industry in India.