Strong RRSP season sales momentum tumbled over into March, according to preliminary mutual fund sales stats from the Investment Funds Institute of Canada.

IFIC estimates that net new sales for March were between $3.3 billion to $3.7 billion. “March sales appear to be continuing with the momentum we built up earlier in the RRSP season,” said Tom Hockin, IFIC’s president & CEO, noting that March includes the last day of the RRSP season.

The biggest beneficiaries were the banks and large firms. CI Fund Management led the way with $598 million in monthly net sales, followed closely by RBC Asset Management at $577 million.

TD Asset Management came in third with $477 million in net sales. Strong sales were also evident at IGM, Dynamic, AIM Trimark and BMO.

Smaller firms generating more than $100 million in net sales included Brandes, Acuity, PH&N, and Manulife.

Saxon Funds announced its 50th consecutive month of positive net sales, reporting $40.3 million for March 2005.

Looking solely at long-term sales, RBC topped the IFIC rankings, with $656 million in net sales, followed by CI and TD.

However, a handful of firms also continued to suffer redemptions. Notably, AIC reported $310 million in total net redemptions. Altamira and Fidelity recorded net redemptions too.

IFIC also estimates that net assets of the industry at the end of March will be in the range of $510 billion to $515 billion.