Mutual funds: Shock of Franklin Templeton's move gone from financial markets

The shock waves sent around the markets following Franklin Templeton`s move to shut six of its debt schemes have now largely abated with the mutual funds sector making a smart recovery again, raising the assets under its management.

Assets under management of Debt MFs, which fell to Rs 12.20 lakh crore as on April 29, 2020, affected by the shock decision of the mutual fund house, recovered and improved to Rs 13.89 lakh crore as on July 31, 2020, RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said in his video address post the monetary policy committee (MPC) meeting.

The RBI had also opened a Rs 50,000 crore window for the MF segment to prevent the contagion of Franklin Templeton from spreading to the entire sector.

Das said that the steps taken by the RBI over past few months to reduce the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on the country`s financial systems are bearing positive results as is evident from the much healthier position in which NBFCs are today. The corporate bond market has also stabilised allowing companies to raise cheaper debt.

"Lower borrowing costs have led to record primary issuance of corporate bonds of Rs 2.09 lakh crore in the first quarter of (April-June) 2020-21. In particular, market financing conditions for NBFCs, which had become challenging, have largely stabilised in the wake of targeted policy measures," Das said.

For AA+ rated 3-year NBFC bonds, spreads over similar tenor G-secs have narrowed from 360 basis points on March 26 to 139 basis points on July 31, 2020. At the same time, financial conditions have improved in specific sectors.

Although non-food bank credit has slowed to 5.6 per cent (as on July 17), credit to NBFCs is growing at 25.7 per cent in June, loans to services at 10.7 per cent, and to housing at 12.5 per cent.

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Monetary transmission has also improved considerably. The weighted average lending rate (WALR) on fresh rupee loans sanctioned by banks declined by 162 basis points during February 2019-June 2020, of which 91 basis points transmission was witnessed during March-June 2020.