Forgotten Folios and the MITRA Initiative in Indian Mutual Funds
Forgotten folios in Indian mutual funds are mutual fund investment accounts that have become inactive, unclaimed, or effectively lost due to investor migration, death of the investor without nominee claim, address or contact information change, or simply long-term neglect. With India’s total folio count exceeding 22 crore by March 2025 – accumulated over three decades of industry growth – a significant minority of these folios carry assets that investors or their heirs are unaware of or unable to access. The MITRA (Mutual fund Inactive accounts TrackeR and Aggregator) initiative, launched by AMFI in 2023 under SEBI’s direction, is the industry’s primary mechanism for helping investors identify and reclaim these dormant accounts.
The scale of dormant and unclaimed folios
Defining “forgotten”
A folio may be classified as forgotten or dormant in various ways:
- No transaction in three or more years: The investor has not purchased, redeemed, or switched units for an extended period.
- Undelivered physical statements: Account statements returned undelivered because the registered address is outdated.
- No registered email or mobile number: The investor cannot be reached through digital channels.
- Death of investor without claim: The investor has died but no nominee or legal heir has submitted a claim.
- Unclaimed redemption proceeds: The investor redeemed units but the proceeds were not successfully credited to the bank account and were not subsequently claimed.
AMFI and SEBI do not publish a single consolidated figure for dormant folios, but industry estimates suggest that 10-20% of total folios (2-4 crore folios) may have had no investor activity for three or more years.
Causes of folio dormancy
KYC update failures: Changes in investor address, mobile number, email, and bank account details – common after relocations or marriage – are not always communicated to the RTA (CAMS or KFin), leaving the folio on outdated contact information.
Employer-linked investments: Employees who opened mutual fund folios through employer-facilitated payroll deduction schemes and subsequently changed employers may not know what to do with existing investments.
Legacy paper-based investments: Investors who invested in the 1990s-2000s through paper forms and UTI branch offices may not have digital access or memory of their folios.
Death and succession: India’s mutual fund industry had relatively low nomination adoption rates historically (though SEBI mandated nominations more strictly from 2022). Heirs of deceased investors often discover folios years after the investor’s death, by which time contact details are stale.
Small-balance folios: Folios with small balances (below Rs 1,000) may be ignored by investors who consider them not worth the effort of accessing.
MITRA initiative
Launch and purpose
AMFI launched MITRA – Mutual fund Inactive accounts TrackeR and Aggregator – in 2023 in response to SEBI’s directive to proactively address the dormant folio problem. MITRA is a centralised, industry-wide platform (hosted by AMFI with data from CAMS and KFin, the two primary RTAs) that allows:
- Investors to search for all mutual fund folios across all AMCs using their PAN.
- Heirs or nominees to identify inherited folios.
- Investors to identify folios opened under old KYC details.
How MITRA works
- An investor (or heir) visits the MITRA portal (accessible via AMFI’s website or the MFCentral platform).
- Enters PAN, Aadhaar, or other identifier.
- MITRA queries CAMS and KFin databases and returns a list of all folios linked to that PAN across all AMCs.
- The investor can see folio details: AMC name, scheme name, current unit balance, approximate current value.
- The investor is directed to the relevant AMC or RTA to complete the KYC update or claim process.
Integration with MFCentral
MITRA is integrated with MFCentral, the investor-facing unified portal jointly operated by CAMS and KFin that allows investors to view, transact, and manage all mutual fund holdings across AMCs through a single login. MFCentral’s Consolidated Account Statement (CAS) function – which SEBI mandates to be sent to all investors with transactions in a calendar half-year – serves a parallel purpose of reminding investors of their holdings.
SEBI’s broader dormancy framework
Nomination mandate (2022)
SEBI circular of June 2022 required all existing folio holders to either:
- Register a nomination, or
- Submit a declaration opting out of nomination.
Folios that did not comply by the specified deadline were frozen for debits (redemptions and switches) but not for credits. This was the most significant forced-activation of dormant folios in industry history. The consequence was a large-scale outreach effort by AMCs and RTAs to dormant folio holders, surfacing millions of “forgotten” investors.
Email and mobile OTP (2022)
The same circular required email and mobile number registration for all folios, with OTP verification, to enable digital communication. This requirement brought a further wave of dormant folio holders into the digital communication ecosystem or, where contact was impossible, confirmed the extent of the unclaimed folio problem.
Resolution pathways
For living investors
- PAN-based folio search via MITRA or MFCentral.
- KYC update with current address, mobile, email, and bank account.
- Portfolio consolidation (switch all holdings to a single AMC account or maintain across AMCs).
- Nomination registration.
For heirs of deceased investors
- Transmission process: submit death certificate, nominee/legal heir documents, and KYC to the AMC/RTA.
- If no nominee was registered: submit legal heirship certificate, indemnity bond, and other legal documentation.
- For small estates: simplified transmission process available for folios below Rs 5 lakh per AMC (no court order required).