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Summary: The one open door for fresh international SIPs moved this week, from Baroda to HSBC. Baroda has now opened and shut twice in under three weeks. The access is real but the door swings on its hinges, and the one-year returns on the funds now open are exactly the kind of number that leads investors astray.
You can start a fresh overseas SIP again. From August 18, HSBC opened three of its overseas funds to new money, up to Rs 2 lakh a month. A day later, on August 19, Baroda BNP Paribas Aqua shut its own to new registrations. So the one place to start a fresh SIP has moved from Baroda to HSBC.
And this is less settled than any one week's snapshot suggests. Baroda itself only reopened in early August, so it has now opened and shut twice in under three weeks. The lone open door does not just move down the corridor. It swings on its hinges. Relying on a single fund staying open is not a plan.
Keep two things apart, because they move separately. Starting a new SIP is one thing; the instalments of a SIP you already run are another. Baroda has shut only new registrations and lumpsums; its existing investors' instalments carry on, and HSBC's were running all along.
What changed this week
| Fund / Invests in | Change this week | Effective from | 1Y (%) | 3Y (%) | 5Y (%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HSBC Global Emerging MarketsEmerging markets | Open to new SIPs and lump sums | 18 Aug | 53.6 | 28.9 | 12.8 |
| HSBC Asia Pacific (ex-Japan) Dividend YieldAsia, ex-Japan | Open to new SIPs and lump sums | 18 Aug | 40.3 | 27.9 | 15.1 |
| HSBC BrazilBrazil | Open to new SIPs and lump sums | 18 Aug | 28.9 | 12.5 | 7.1 |
| Baroda BNP Paribas AquaGlobal water theme | Closed to new SIPs and lump sums | 19 Aug | 15.0 | 15.4 | 8.8 |
| Invesco India Pan European EquityEurope | Existing SIPs resumed | 18 Aug | 38.1 | 22.7 | 15.8 |
| Invesco India Global Equity IncomeGlobal | Existing SIPs resumed | 18 Aug | 27.0 | 24.3 | 17.9 |
| Invesco India Global Consumer TrendsGlobal consumer | Existing SIPs resumed | 18 Aug | 9.7 | 24.2 | 5.9 |
| Returns of direct plan, as of August 19, 2026. | |||||
Those one-year numbers will catch your eye, and that is the trap. One of these funds is up 54 per cent over the past year, another more than 40. A year that good usually means the market has already run, not that it will run again, and buying after the run is how investors arrive late. A recent return tells you where a fund has been, not whether it belongs in your portfolio. What decides that is the risk it carries and how it fits what you already own. Judge it on that, not on the headline number.
The freeze on existing SIPs, meanwhile, eased a little. Invesco restarted instalments in three of its funds from August 18, so the number of schemes with existing SIPs frozen fell from 28 to 25. Its Nasdaq-100 fund stays shut. The cause, as ever, is India's cap on how much its funds can invest abroad: room opens when investors sell, and runs out when holdings swell. That is why fund access keeps swinging open and shut, while the ETF premium below, capped by a separate limit that has not moved since 2024, barely budges.
If these funds do not appeal, there is a steadier route: a diversified fund that already holds a slice abroad keeps its SIP running throughout. We listed those funds here, though DSP Healthcare has since fallen below our 10 per cent cut-off.
The ETF premium, in brief
The other way in, a global ETF, comes with its own toll: the price sits above the value the fund holds, a gap called the premium. Nothing moved much here this week, and that is the point: the premium is still high almost everywhere. The two Nasdaq funds are the dearest, near the top of their year's range and more than twice their usual premium. Only Hang Seng BeES is cheap, at 3.8 per cent against a 14.8 per cent average, near its lowest in a year.
Global ETFs: Where the premium stands
| Global ETF | NAV (Rs) | Price (Rs) | Premium now (%) | 52-wk avg premium (%) | 52-wk premium range (%) | 52-wk avg daily trading (Rs cr) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Motilal Oswal NASDAQ 100 | 275.43 | 336.38 | 22.1 | 10.0 | −3.0 to 27.7 | 23.27 |
| Mirae Asset NYSE FANG+ | 172.32 | 207.48 | 20.4 | 19.7 | 11.8 to 30.1 | 5.60 |
| Mirae Asset S&P 500 Top 50 | 67.03 | 80.83 | 20.6 | 19.4 | 14.5 to 23.7 | 1.56 |
| Motilal Oswal Nasdaq Q50 | 123.98 | 151.65 | 22.3 | 13.6 | −1.7 to 26.4 | 1.42 |
| Mirae Asset Hang Seng TECH | 19.25 | 23.19 | 20.5 | 19.6 | 12.4 to 36.4 | 2.48 |
| Nippon India Hang Seng BeES | 461.48 | 479.18 | 3.8 | 14.8 | 3.4 to 25.6 | 8.57 |
| Data as of August 19, 2026. Premium is the price above NAV; a minus sign is a discount. NSE data. | ||||||
So new SIPs are possible again, and that is useful. But do not start a fund because its door happened to open this week, or because it posted a big year. Both are noise. The question that matters is whether the fund fits your portfolio: the risk it adds, the return you can reasonably expect, and how it sits with what you already hold. If it clears that test, a reopening you cannot time is no reason to rush. The Value Research Fund Advisor is built to help you judge that fit.
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