Do mutual funds actually beat Sanchayapatra? Here is the count
Sanchayapatra pays a fixed rate with no market risk. We counted how many tracked mutual funds actually cleared that bar over the same period, and how many cleared inflation.
These figures update themselves. Every number below is recalculated from NAV history each day, so this page is current as of 24 September 2026 rather than the day it was written.
Sanchayapatra is the honest benchmark for a Bangladeshi saver. It pays a known rate, it carries no market risk, and almost everyone deciding whether to try a mutual fund is really asking whether the fund will do better than the certificate they already understand.
So we counted, rather than argued.
The count over 2 years
| Where the money went | Per year |
|---|---|
| Sanchayapatra | 11.8% |
| DPS | 9.5% |
| Bank FDR | 8.8% |
| Inflation | 9.3% |
| Best tracked fund | 20.20% |
| Weakest tracked fund | 0.44% |
Of the 35 funds tracked, 9 returned more per year than Sanchayapatra over this window. That is 26% of them.
Against inflation, 15 funds cleared the bar.
Fewer than half the funds beat a certificate that carries no market risk. Anyone selling mutual funds as an obvious upgrade over Sanchayapatra is skipping that number.
The funds that cleared it
| # | Fund | Type | Per year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | VIPB Fixed Income Fund | Income | 20.20% |
| 2 | Ekush Stable Return Fund | Income | 16.20% |
| 3 | UCB Income Plus Fund | Income | 16.09% |
| 4 | EDGE Bangladesh Mutual Fund | Growth | 15.71% |
| 5 | EDGE AMC Growth Fund | Growth | 15.65% |
| 6 | Ekush Growth Fund | Growth | 15.09% |
| 7 | Shanta Fixed Income Fund | Income | 14.75% |
| 8 | EDGE High Quality Income Fund | Income | 14.70% |
| 9 | Ekush First Unit Fund | Balanced | 14.35% |
What the count does and does not say
It does not settle whether funds are better or worse than Sanchayapatra. It says the choice of fund decides the answer.
The spread is the point. The strongest fund and the weakest fund on that table were available to the same person on the same day. The gap between them dwarfs the gap between Sanchayapatra and DPS. Where fixed-return products differ from each other by a rounding error, the choice among funds decided the outcome.
The second thing a fixed rate cannot do is change. Sanchayapatra pays what it pays. A fund's holdings are real businesses whose earnings can grow, which is the entire reason to accept the risk. Whether that reason paid off over this window is exactly what the table above answers, honestly, fund by fund.
What the comparison leaves out
Sanchayapatra has purchase limits and a fixed tenure, and early encashment reduces what you get. A mutual fund can be sold, but its price on the day you sell is whatever the market says, which can be lower than what you paid.
Tax treatment differs between the two and is not modelled in any figure here. Neither are platform charges or the spread between a fund's buying and selling price.
The benchmark rates used above are the ones on the ReturnKoto? homepage chart, so the comparison you see here matches the one you can run yourself against any amount. How each option works, and which suits which goal, is set out in the guide to mutual funds, Sanchayapatra, DPS and FDR.
The useful question
Not "are funds better than Sanchayapatra". The count says that depends entirely on which fund.
The better question is whether you can identify, in advance, a fund likely to be in the group that clears the bar. Nobody can do that with certainty. What you can do is look at how long a fund has been running, whether it has held up across more than one market, what it actually owns and what it charges, rather than picking on a single headline number.
Common questions
What rate is Sanchayapatra assumed to pay here?
11.8% a year over this window, the same rate used on the homepage chart. DPS is taken at 9.5% and bank FDR at 8.8%.
Does the fund comparison include dividends?
Yes, reinvested, which is the default across the site. A fund's payout is a large part of its return and leaving it out would understate every fund.
Is tax included on either side?
No. Tax treatment differs between these products and is not modelled in any figure on this page.
Does beating inflation matter more than beating Sanchayapatra?
They answer different questions. Inflation at 9.3% tells you whether your money held its purchasing power. Sanchayapatra tells you whether taking market risk was worth it against a safe alternative.
Further reading on this site
- Guide: mutual funds vs Sanchayapatra, DPS and FDR
- Learn: mutual funds vs the safe options
- Methodology: how returns are calculated
Run these numbers on your own amount
