Insights of Mutual Funds for Retail Investors

This paper is an attempt to study overview of the mutual fund industry in India and the retail participation to understand the penetration and expected growth over a period of time. Mutual Funds are known to all types of investors but the majority participation is concentrated to FII's and DII's; keeping the retail investors contribution to minimal. Few welcome changes in Mutual Funds internal and external environment will definitely lead to maximum retail participation. With close to a total of 44 fund houses in the country, the top five companies account for close to 80 per cent of the sector's assets under management. According to estimates the asset base of the mutual fund industry in the country is expected to grow faster at 18.6 percent per annum to cross Rs 20 trillion(US$ 325 billion) by 2018 with an investor base of 10 crore accounts. This paper try to have insight the future of Retail Segment with their current status, difficulties, challenges and examines the opportunities for retail investors. With the total investor base still at a low level of 2 per cent out of the total domestic population, there are ample growth opportunities available in the domestic mutual fund industry.