December was the best month on record for global ETP flows, which topped £39.5bn ($60bn), making it a blockbuster year as the industry finished with £217bn ($330.6bn) of inflows, Ursula Marchioni, head of ETP research at iShares EMEA, has said.
She said: “This is testament to the ETF industry coming of age with ETFs being used by new client types and for new applications, and aided by deeper liquidity and larger assets under management.”
The European industry finished the year with the one of the highest organic growth rates compared to other regions, according to the ETP research head, with inflows for Europe-listed ETPs totalled £40bn ($61.4bn).
Ms Marchioni said that encouraging news on the US economic outlook, a strong dollar and a further drop in the price of oil sparked a late-month equity rally and caused the surge in global inflows.
According to iShares, which is owned by Blackrock, Pan-European equity flows stabilised further gathering £1.5bn ($2.3bn) while Japanese equity gathered $5.6bn, all from Japan-listed funds, as Prime Minister Abe secured support for his economic policies in early elections.
She said: “Globally, fixed income ETPs had their best year yet seeing $84.5bn of inflows. Low inflation expectations across developed markets, a low and stable interest rate environment in the US and expansionary central bank policies in Europe and Japan all contributed to investors’ increased allocations to the asset class.”
iShares has over $1tn invested in 716 ETPs and 37.8 per cent of the world’s total ETF assets under management are invested in its funds.
