Folio

A folio is your account with a mutual fund, much like a bank account number. The RTA records your units and transactions against your folio.

What the folio holds

Every purchase, SIP instalment, redemption and switch you make in a scheme is logged against your folio, along with your contact and bank details and your nominee. When you ask for a statement, it is drawn from the folio. It is the fund house’s record of you as an investor, maintained on its behalf by a registrar and transfer agent, the RTA.

One folio or many

You can end up with several folios: a new one often opens each time you invest in a different fund house, and sometimes even within the same house if your details do not match an existing record. Scattered folios make your holdings harder to track. You can ask the fund house or RTA to consolidate them under a single folio, and a consolidated account statement from the RTA shows every folio across fund houses in one place.

Folio versus demat

A folio is not a demat account. A folio is your record held directly with the fund house through its RTA, the normal way to hold mutual funds. A demat account holds securities electronically with a depository and is mainly for shares and ETFs, though funds can be held there too if you prefer. Keeping your details consistent across folios makes life easier for you and your nominee later.