Equity mutual funds receive Rs 5,000 cr every month: Bhave

Mumbai, Jan 12 (PTI) In spite of it being a tough yearfor the mutual fund (MF) industry, equity funds received ahealthy Rs 5,000 crore every month, Securities and ExchangeBoard of India (SEBI) Chairman C B Bhave said today.

The existing equity fund products received steady inflowsin 2010 despite it being a tough year for the MF industry, hesaid.

Bhave was speaking to the media after launching acertified financial programme by TeamLease here.

However, on newer products getting lacklustre response,the SEBI chief made his reservations public by saying thatthey were mostly replicas of the older ones.

The stock market regulator''s move to do away with theentry load on funds - the money paid to distributors ascommissions -- had hit the MF industry severely.

Asset management firms used to spend a major portion ofthe money they collected as entry fees from investors to paydistributors'' commissions. After the load was scrapped in2009, distributors lost the incentive to sell funds.

Bhave also said that the regulator is looking into theidea of setting up SME Exchanges even though no bourses haveformally approached it.

"We are very keen on that (SME Exchanges) ... We haveinitiated the process ... finally it is in the hands of theexchanges to decide whether they want to create a separateplatform for SMEs," Bhave said.

On January 5, BSE Chief Executive Officer Madhu Kannanhad said the country''s premier bourse would announce thelaunch of its SME Exchange within a fortnight. .

"We have made a number of presentations to the regulator and a few more are awaited. Within the next coupleof weeks, we will be able to have a clearer picture on thisand then we will be able to announce the roll out date,"Kannan had said.

The BSE, along with NSE and MCX SX, is keen on settingup SME Exchanges since SEBI floated the idea in June lastyear. However, none of these exchanges has applied formallyfor a licence.

The government and capital markets watchdog mooted theidea of a separate exchange for small and medium enterpriseslast year as the existing bourses are too costly for them.

Proposed SME bourses will allow small companies to getlisted at a lower cost and raise smaller amount of money fromthe primary markets.

This will also force these companies to adopt bettercorporate governance practises and in turn will get cheaperfunds from capital market as well as from banks.