Over the last two years, retail investors have significantly reduced their long-term investments in debt funds. AMFI's age-wise AUM data shows that, of the total retail investors' investment in non-equity funds (debt funds), about 48% was held for more than two years in 2019. But that number fell to 41% in 2021. Experts say that this could be because investors chose better-performing asset classes such as equity, and that they might have been put off by debt funds' mediocre performance in the current, uncertain interest-rate scenario. Conservative investors may have been further influenced by the instances of credit default that impacted the returns of debt funds.