'Heartening that people have understood importance of SIPs'

Swati Kulkarni, Executive Vice-President of UTI Mutual Fund, said on Wednesday that it was heartening to see that people have understood the need for Systematic Investment Plans (SIPs).

Speaking to CNBC-TV18, Kulkarni said that the SIP route for investments was not very popular earlier, but now the mutual fund industry is now clocking an SIP book of nearly Rs 4,500 crore a month, which she said had been a structural change.

He said the overall asset allocation for growth-oriented equities was quite small and that it needs to go up for wealth creation to take place.

Kulkarni said that UTI had just launched the Smart Woman Savings Plan, a rebranding of the UTI Mahila Unit scheme. It is an open-ended debt-oriented plan with 30 percent equity allocation, and is available to women above 18 years of age. The scheme has given a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.5 percent over the past three years.