Foreign liabilities of Indian MFs up 24% to Rs 720 billion in FY17

Mumbai: Foreign liabilities of mutual fund companies in India stood at Rs 71,980 crore for the fiscal ended March 2017, up 23.7 per cent from a year ago, data from Reserve Bank showed on Tuesday.

The data is based on RBI's survey on foreign liabilities of 44 Indian mutual fund (MF) companies and their asset management companies (AMCs) during 2016-17.

With regard to mutual fund companies, the RBI said their foreign liabilities at Rs 719.80 billion in March 2017, of which 99.8 per cent were the units issued to non-residents.

It stood at Rs 58,168 crore for fiscal ended March 2016.

The remaining liabilities included unpaid income/dividends to non-residents and sale proceeds pending repatriation, the RBI said.

As per the RBI data, UAE, Singapore, UK, USA and Mauritius together accounted for nearly half of the MF units held by non-residents in March 2017.

Units held in Mauritius recorded a 48 per cent decline, coinciding with the signing of the Protocol to amend the India-Mauritius Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTAA) during 2016-17, showed the data.

The US and Luxembourg were the major overseas investment destinations for MFs companies during 2016-17.

With respect of asset management companies of these MFs, the net foreign liabilities were Rs 5,242.5 crore (USD 0.8 billion) in March 2017, against Rs 4,157.2 crore, showing an increase of 26.1 per cent for the last fiscal.

Foreign liabilities of AMCs were mainly owed to non- residents in Mauritius, the UK and Japan whereas Guernsey was the main destination of their relatively small overseas assets, the RBI said.