Banks with their own AMCs minted money

Banks are powerful financial institutions. When it comes to selling mutual funds, they are big influencers too. With the inherent advantages of customers coming to them, and ability to leverage the trust enjoyed on account of old banking relationships, banks sell MFs much more easily than any pure-play distributor, online platform, broker or independent financial advisor. This is why HDFC Bank, State Bank of India, Axis Bank, ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Citibank and Standard Chartered Bank continue to remain among the top mutual fund distributors in terms commissions earned. In total, banks (as MF distributors) earned Rs 3480 crore as commissions in FY18 compared to Rs 1944 crore in FY17. In most cases, the bank turns out to be the biggest distributor of its own AMC as well. Read on to know more details. Big banks, big bucks FY18 had been a phenomenal year for most mutual fund distributors. Last year, the stock market rallied which helped attract robust inflows to the mutual fund industry. The Mutual Fund Sahi Hai campaign, which also took off during this period, added to the interest shown in mutual funds. This helped distributors make handsome commissions. In total, the top 979 MF distributors earned Rs 8533 crore as commissions. In FY17, 732 distributors earned Rs 5000 crore. AMFI discloses top MF distributors' commissions of a given fiscal year, after collating the data across fund houses. Commissions earned by the top 10 distributors Distributor FY18 (Rs Cr) FY17 Gain (%) NJ Indiainvest 786.77 442.68 78 HDFC Bank 641.39 396.51 62 SBI 557.9 178.79 212 Axis Bank 537.71 248.53 116 ICICI Bank 470.28 279.68 68 ICICI Securities 316.53 172.58 83 Kotak Mahindra Bank 274.29 198.67 38 Citibank 248.96 185.02 35 Prudent Corporate Advisory Services 217.82 99.21 120 Standard Chartered Bank 185.42 119.53 55 Banks already have the largest number of entities among the top 10 MF distributors at an industry level. If the commissions earned by all MF distributors in FY18 rose by 70%, banks' commissions rose by 80%. Also, the share of banks' commissions in the overall distributor pie grew. Banks, as MF distributors, earned Rs 3480