Growth in mutual funds phenomenal, but are there enough investment opportunities, says Sebi's Singh

While we are growing at a phenomenal speed (investments in mutual funds), what we need to be “watchful” about is that if you have enough investment opportunities, Amarjeet Singh, whole time member, Sebi said today.

“Do you have enough asset classes to invest in. Is too much money chasing too few good opportunities?” noted Singh while speaking at Moneycontrol’s Mutual Fund Summit 2025.

“Thankfully we seem to have a good primary market, IPOs coming in…But the speed at which money is coming in, mutual funds have a stake in ensuring that there are more investment opportunity in the market, where money can be invested in more productive manner,” said Singh.

The official noted that MF industry has grown exponentially in the last 11 years. The asset under management of MFs grew from Rs 8.25 lakh crore in 2014 to Rs 72 lakh crore as of today.

Singh highlighted that the number of MF schemes grew from 810 to 1760 from in the past decade, and monthly SIPs grew from nearly Rs 3,000 crore to Rs 26,688 crore during the period.

Additionally, share of retail investors in AUM went up from 23% to 28% in past 10 years, and the number of distributors grew from around 70,000 to over 2 lakh. Number of folios also went up from 4.2 crore to 23.4 crore.

While we grow let us also continue to strengthen our systems so there is no loss of trust of the investors, noted Singh.

He also said that effective gate keeping and checks are important, adding that role of auditors, board, board committees and trustees continue to remain crucial.

Singh noted that Sebi has been working “very closely” with AMFI and added that it wants to focus on outcomes. “Outcome based colloborative regulation is important…rule-based compliance often leads to box-ticking. What truly matters is investor outcomes and market integrity, built on a foundation of mutual trust and respect.