While speaking at the SIF360 Bharat Summit 2026 held in Mumbai, DP Singh, Joint CEO, SBI Mutual Fund called the recent proposal by Securities and exchange board of India (Sebi) to launch a mutual fund-only PMS (MF-PMS) a game-changing move for the distribution and investment management industry. The regulator proposed MF-PMS to invest in direct plans of mutual funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and specialized investment funds (SIFs).
Singh believes that SIFs will derive the maximum benefit from the new framework which could drive SIF assets over Rs 1 lakh crore mark in the next 3-6 months. He added that the new framework can reduce the gap between the investor and the manufacturer of investment products and along with SIFs, it can attract many millennial investors. He also expressed hope that in future more SIF categories will find a place in investor portfolios, including debt SIFs which face issues related to tax efficiency.
Niche Positioning
Explaining the basis of his optimism, Singh said that SIFs have tremendous scope as they allow fund houses to develop niches in their schemes for specific investment needs, which can help them cater to a target investor base. The limited number of scheme categories in SIFs has also made the product basket of each fund house look similar. Singh believes that this will make process and accountability very important to succeed in the industry. “The positioning of schemes will be very important for fund houses to succeed in products like SIF and MF-PMS,” he added.
Scaling Non-EPFO PMS Assets
Besides this, Singh also talked about the growth of PMS assets, about 2x from Rs 21.56 lakh crore to over Rs 43 lakh crore in the last five years. He pointed to the fact that while the industry’s total assets are about half of total mutual fund assets, the asset share held by non-EPFO is much lower, around Rs 9 lakh crore.
According to Singh, the MF-PMS category can lead to manifold growth in non-EPFO PMS assets and boost the number of portfolio managers in the country by 10x in the next 5 years. Further, he added that the low churn in MF-PMS can make them more tax-efficient, removing a key drawback of conventional PMS. He called the new framework a step in the progression of investment products in India following mutual funds, alternative investment funds (AIFs) and SIFs catering to the investment needs of various financial demographics.