Exchange-traded funds are gaining traction as investment vehicles

Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are gaining traction as investment vehicles, given their low-cost structure and better returns to actively-managed schemes. In the past five years, assets under management (AUM) of ETF schemes have jumped more than 30-fold to Rs 1.47 trillion. While ETFs are still a small fraction of the total AUM, market players say the share of passive investment vehicles will only grow in the years ahead. Also, the market is expected to expand as more schemes get launched in the debt segment. In some developed countries, debt ETFs account for a bigger chunk of the total ETF market. In India, currently, it is only 2 per cent. On the equity side, experts say investors may increasingly prefer ETFs over actively large-cap schemes as the return scorecard in recent years has been in favour of the former.