In October eight of top ten equity funds sold in Europe were index trackers or exchange-traded funds according to Lipper, the asset management research provider.

Detlef Glow, head of EMEA research at Lipper, said in his Monday morning memo this week that the European mutual fund industry posted overall net inflows of €0.4bn into long-term mutual funds for October despite a massive slowdown for European fund flows.

Glow said the slowdown in in October was driven by net outflows of €9.3bn from equity funds and from “other” funds of €1.9bn.

“It is remarkable that in October only two of the ten best selling equity funds in Europe were actively managed products, while the other eight were index trackers or ETFs,” he added.

Lipper found that BlackRock had the largest net sales of €3.9bn, across asset classes in October, followed by US rival Vanguard with €2.2bn and Pioneer in third place with €1.6bn.

Despite the overall net outflows, equities North America gathered the most assets in October, at €4.4bn, while equities Europe funds suffered net outflows of €4.1bn.

Glow said that in contrast to long-term products, money market funds posted inflows of €27.4bn and enhanced money market funds gathered net inflows of €1.1bn, the highest net inflows of all the fund categories covered in the Lipper FundFile database.

“These flows showed once again how active European investors use money market products in their asset allocation,” added Glow.

The European Fund and Asset Management Association also found large net inflows into money market funds its latest Investment Funds Industry Fact Sheet for October 2014. The EFAMA report said net sales of Ucits, funds governed by European Union rules, jumped to €44bn in October, from €14bn in September as money market funds posted net inflows of €22bn in October, compared to net outflows of €14bn in September.

Bernard Delbecque, director of economics and research at EFAMA said in a statement: “Deflationary pressures in the euro area supported net sales of bond funds in October, whereas market concerns about growth prospects continued to hold back net sales of equity funds.”

Bond funds registered net sales of €16bn, up from €13bn in September while, in contrast, net outflows from equity funds remained at €6bn for the second consecutive month. Total net assets of Ucits rose 0.5% in October to €7,901bn. Overall, total net assets of the European investment fund industry was €11,030bn at the end of October.