Computer Age Management Services Ltd

NSE:CAMS

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q4

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the Q4 FY '24 Earnings Conference Call of Computer Age Management Services Limited hosted by Orient Capital.

[Operator Instructions]

And I'll hand the conference over to Ms. Shiwani Karwat from Orient Capital. Thank you, and over to you, Ms.

[Shiwani Karwat, analyst]

Hi. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Q1 FY '24 Earnings Conference Call for Computer Age Management Services Limited. As mentioned today, from the management we have with us Mr. Anuj Kumar, Managing Director; Mr. Ran Charan, SR, CFO; and Mr. Anish Sawlani, Head of Investor Relations.

Before we proceed to start the call, I would like to give a disclaimer that this conference call may contain forward-looking statements about the company, which are based on beliefs, opinions and expectations of the company as on date. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties, which are difficult to predict. A detailed disclaimer has also been published in the investor presentation, which was released to the stock exchanges. I hope everybody had a chance to go through the presentation.

I will now hand over the call to Mr. Anuj Kumar, Managing Director. Thanks, everyone, and over to you, sir.

[Anuj Kumar, executive]

Thanks, Shiwani, and good morning, everyone. Appreciate all of you making the time to join the earnings call today morning. I'd like to do in the standard format. I'll take you through presentation. Ramcharan will cover the financials over the first about 20 to 25 minutes [indiscernible] open for Q&A.

So our [indiscernible], all of you have seen results mine now. We had a very strong quarter, perhaps the strongest in the last many years. And I think the great news is that the we are all cylinder firing. And I'll explain to you what that means. But we had most components to the business, whether on the mutual fund side or on the non-MF side firing in terms of revenue growth and share. And the profits obviously followed given the fact that we have managed to exercise just significant prudence and controls in managing our costs. But looking at Chart #6, on the mutual fund business, you know that in the last year, we've had a clean sweep. So we have on average single mutual fund that decided to set up operations or business.

This is [indiscernible], like you all know, [indiscernible] and UniFi Capital. With 1 large mandate who is difficult has not been announced so far, we are, of course, very positively and strongly engaged there, which we will declare in the time. But these 3, all of them coming to us has been a very smooth experience. With these 3 wins, the culmination is that we have an aggregate of 5 among the last 7 new open mutual fund AMC books, which have happened in the country.

Our mutual fund AUM has scaled sharply. It is now at the end of the quarter was INR 37.2 million trillion. This was a 10% quarterly growth and about 33% year-on-year. Overall market share stands at 68%. Equity AUM had a fantastic run. It stands at the end of the quarter at INR 19.3 trillion or INR 1.3 lakh crores. This registered almost a 50% scale up, and all of you have been watching us with numbers. and now the constituents. So this had almost a 50% scale up.

The good news is that our equity AUM, which is -- which represents the retail part of the franchise, which represents the highest yield, and therefore, profit accretive component of the mutual fund business grew ahead of the industry and continues to gain share. This is gaining share has been has been a phenomenon for the last about 6 quarters, but it continues to stay there, which is great news and indicative of how these stacks are laid out amongst the AMCs in terms of growth of equity AUM.

This then is supported by the live SIP book. And you know that, that is one of the key things, the engine of the car, which is moving the sole thing ahead. Our live SIP book grew 37% ahead of an overall industry number of 32%. Fine. And then our unique investor base cross, 3 crores or 30 million. And again as a foundational metric, if you get more investors, they come into more SIPs. I think both over the years is almost assured because this is sticky money, and they're not prone to a remedial reaction.

Unique investor base for TAM service funds grew 25%, again, at a significant advantage over the rest of the industry, which grew 18%. On the non-mutual fund side, again, very satisfying for us because there are several components there. We've described that as mutual fund plus 6. And within this, most businesses scaled and scaled very well, the ones which are profitable and improve profitability. So the sustained focus has seen 2.5% to 15 basis points year-on-year growth. This was about 11% contribution to revenue last year. This quarter, 13.5%, so scale up 1%, 2.5%, which we have said that we'll be happy doing 2% every year, so as well into non-MF, do remember that non-MF has gained share despite very, very sharp run-up in assets and significant growth in MR. So that was not an easy task, but we've managed to do that.

Within that, alternatives grew 20%. That is Temps AIF and what top does, 32 new mandates, including several in [indiscernible]. CAMS Pay and the payment franchise has been doing well. We've got the in principle, as you know, last year, this quarter. We got the final authorization of license to operate as a VA from RVI in 4Q, which was great news during the year. We were out how to transition the business over time. So that has done well and has had in excess of 20% revenue growth.

On the insurance side, if you acute, IRDA has undated electronic issuance of policies now, this does not mean a mandate holding in [indiscernible]. What this also means that you could -- the other thing that stipulate says that [indiscernible] quality will be insured only in the request of the policyholder, if he start to want see. Other than that, you can issue it in the digital locker, you could keep it in the EIA so the insurance account, it could also be a PDF, which goes through an e-mail, but it's a cut down on paper issuance. It is still mandatory [indiscernible]. But a good investment. I think the markets are noticing and that will give some fill-up to overall momentum in creating EIAs and accruing policies in that front.

KRA continues to broaden its offerings, and more importantly, broaden the go-to-market. We've said that outside of mutual funds, we have now for the last what, 1.5 years been focused on onboarding fintech brokerage with entities, wealth advisers, investment advisers, those kind of entities. Revenue grew a stratosphere at 90%. And all of this adds up to the 52% non-MF growth that you've seen, of course, on a small base, very gratifying to see that part of the franchise really come out on top in terms of our reenue growth.

So in terms of highlights, just broad highlights. Overall company revenue grew about 2%, MF at 21%, you see all of this, non-MF at 52%. Even if I out 30-60 contribution, which was -- which accrued to us starting April last year. If I take that out on a constant basis, and we think that's 52% In non-MF, we had a gratigying [indiscernible]. Overall EBITDA, and you've seen the number is at 31% year-on-year growth. EBITDA percentage, I would say, is at 46.1%, largely given the run-up in assets and in revenue. This was about 44.8% last quarter. And we believe there is a more moderate number between 45 and 46, where it should show up in the next couple of quarters, 46 is slightly statistic. So look at it that way, PAT grew 3.7%. And then overall PAT percentage just like I spoke about the EBITDA percentage is 32.2%, which is 320 basis points up.

Again, an exceptional quarter, we will see whether we can hold out exactly these profit margins, maybe a little slightly moderate in the coming 2 quarters, but all of that, all of us a was close.

If we go to next. I will cover Chart #7. Again, this presentation opened uploaded. So most of you have seen I think the retail growth has played out across the board, and this plays out in part of IP registration, where you saw that our overall gross of it registrations are almost INR 265 lakhs. So upwards of INR 2.5 crores -- and when you see this is ahead of the industry metrics, 73% versus 70% very, very foundational. If I see gross SIP sales, so when you register more growth societies, obviously, 1 expectation is that you will get increased collections and increase sales. That has gone up from 58% share to a 60% share out of the bottom of the chart. Overall increased share in SIP collections, which is 22% versus 28%.

And similarly, when you see all of this leads to just an exceptional gain in equity net sales share, which has grown from 65% FY '23. If I take the whole year, there's at 75%. So that's a significant scale up. This has also led to transactions growing. And when you see transactions on the top chart, INR 13 crore transactions in April to June, not too long back, not a year back, April-June INR 13 crores. INR 14 crore July to September, close to INR 15.5 crores October to December, INR 17.5 crores Jan-March. So INR 13 crores going to INR 17.5 crores going in excess of 30%.

What this creates is just the significant focus on getting things right. As you know, officially, we open, like I said, over 2.5 new SIPs, several new folios, everything has to go right, including making sure that every SMS is delivered, every e-mail is delivered, every format of customer action is fully recorded. So it just takes humongous amount of focus to get all of these things right, it's almost a near 0 environment. It also means that both the people capability in making the engine run and the technology capability in solving these very, very complex problems of making sure that 100 floor SMSs land up where they are supposed to land up. And if a couple of lag did not land up, then we have enough packets to make the investors aware of what happened to their transactions. Email if an event doesn't work than a voice blast or a letter. So it also means a significant investment in data centers, capacity availability, storage, processing, perimeter security, monitoring. Just think of every aspect of it.

This is needed tremendous focus, tremendous investment, just happy to share with all the figures that that's come out very well. In my tenure, I think in the last several 7, 8 years, I have not seen a quarter which had just so much activity, which has significantly bolstered financial results.

Next. I will quickly take you through the key businesses on alternatives. 4Q revenue grew over 24%. Clients continue to indicate the preference for CAMS, 32 new mandates. The digital onboarding platform WealthServ has now ended at over 152 sign-ups. So think of about 1,000 AIF intestate. And then within that, almost over 10% of the customers are using our digital onboarding and they continue to scale up [indiscernible].

New cities, total client value to 17 scaled up a little more in the last month, but going well. We had announced, you may have seen an exchange filing that we are setting up a larger offers, which should be opening in July, the space [indiscernible] will lease. We see potential, a lot of potential there, and we've hired a mutate. So all of that will play out over the next 4 to 5, 16 days.

[indiscernible] so if that platform integrates now custody companies of the basic costumes then combining with both BMS and AIFs. And now they're building capabilities for a still onboarding of FDIs and FDIs for these custody banks. So that part is growing well. [indiscernible] has also turned at EBITDA level profitable last year, which is great news for that business.

On payments, just a set of positive happening, of course, the license is one of them. In addition to that, in excess of about 20% of new search for the year, about 24% across the board, over 80 new client wins. UPI AutoPay where we were a pioneer tannofcourse, other people have learned and they're doing the same things, but we were the pioneer in proposing UPI AutoPay as an alternate to [indiscernible] as a way to collect SIP money. So a lot of momentum there.

And then specifically from a PSU perspective. Now you know that there's great salience in PSUs. These are large clients. We have gone live with the authentication services for LIC and then doing -- planning to do PG kind of work with [indiscernible].

Go to the next. KRA first perhaps in the best story again, some of them are small base for the last 6 quarters, all of you've seen just fantastic about 10-minute KYC. Again All of these things are copyable, there's nothing which someone else can't copy it. But there is an advantage in being first to the market because that just creates salience and thought leadership in the minds of the customers that we can do the best job, and we can do it ahead of anyone. So we were the first to kind of bring this out, makes the job of account opening much faster. You can open the account to start transacting, especially on the same day.

And then all the constituents of artificial intelligence, including almost instant name [indiscernible] face et cetera [indiscernible] all of that is built in. So we delivered a robust 90% year-on-year growth even quarterly, we grew almost 30%, 28% quarter-on-quarter. Continue to add fintechs. I said to mutual funds are significantly penetrated. Most of our mutual funds are with us. Fintechs and brokerages, although we still don't have the first 1 or 2 names. Those are expected to sometimes start working with us, but the 1 or 2 or 3 top brokerages are still not there. This will happen despite that. Once we are able to crack 1 of the top funds, I think the results could be even sweeter.

And then from a -- just from a collaboration, cooperation between think and KRA and think KRA and other are excited to work close in the market because we are not rebuilding any components which are available in the group. I think things solution, which you know has been active for public sector banks, very active in fact. That is now acting as a front end and then [indiscernible] brings up the real in all our KYC promotion sales.

On rep, CAMS rep, we were hoping and expecting that there could be some definitive move towards demand now, as you know, in the recent announcement, that's not happened. Digital issuance, of course, will become mandatory, but that is very thin. What it has certainly done is that a lot of people, including consumers have read the circulars, read the news, the inquiry about AIF was more sustained. People want to understand what's happening there. So we've crossed about 80 lakh policies, we had 60 lakh e-insurance accounts, overall about 40% market share.

The other thing is that BMS Central is now live, of course, integrating insurance companies a job and building data exchange with them. So there's a small set of companies now, insurance company live. It's the ability to nelpy are in his life, but its ability to help you manage your personal data in the insurance and over a period of time as regulation and market frame was aligned to it, allow various things, including premium payments, renewals, in marking, [indiscernible], et cetera. All of that is slated to others on the platform. So that is a good thing. We would have expected a little more action here, which may happen in the ensuing quarters.

And then on Since, again, very nice story playing out, you would remember 2 years back, when we had gone live sometime in the beginning of FY '22. We almost have 2% to 3% market share. That was the time when the group start and adopted the things like on the PSP side, the PFM sector wasn't selling as much. It was largely a lender market. So you will find in [indiscernible] in the fence to enter. Pleased to share with you that we now have double-digit market share. I've shown this figure in the past to you. Number scaled to about 13% and a hypercompetitive market with a lot of income on an income for some. The 13% has been sweet [indiscernible] account opening, most people tend to prefer us. And we continue to onboard the high-quality marquee customers in this area.

We have the largest number of Live SIP. This is a nice selling point because SIPs are the ones given data. If you have larger SIPs, you get a large number of SIPs, you could come intrinsically attractive to anyone who's trying to pull data. So that's a nice committed to have on our side.

So again, I think while revenues are still very small. It was perhaps not worthy of mention here, but there's the scale up, the quality of teams we built, the quality of integration and API is consumer journeys, market share are very, very positive. Think continues to so let you know, Quick ID, which is [indiscernible] product, continues to scale up with the PSU banks. Also the good news is that we've got a panel by State Bank of India and should be able to go live with them. Think and Wrap, as you know, one of these insurances KYC steel contracts, both from SBI General and rental insurance, rental is now live. And that part is going well. They commenced an analytics transformation deal worth Money Control. And overall then, Algo360 had to start with [indiscernible]. So sustained I would say, client level movement at the -- across products and our continued to stay focused on building the team and you show that the partnership with CAMS and various subsidiaries of CAMS will lead to meaningful expansion of the business.

I will pause there and then hand over to Ramcharan to speak a little about the financials.

[Sesha Ramcharan, executive]

Thank you, Anuj. I'll just take a couple of minutes to go through the financial numbers and the terms. As you would have noted, the AUM grew significantly year-on-year to up by about 33 percentage. So the overall revenue factored grew by around 25 percentage INR 310 crores, out of which INR 269 crores was MF revenue again grew by around 21%, tracking the growth in AUM. And the good in AUM was actually to disproportionate to the overall growth. So we had almost 50% growth in equity AUM, which is beneficial to us. So tracking that the revenue, mutual revenue as well as overall revenue grew by 25% and 21%, respectively.

All of which, the asset-based revenue grew by around 20% year-on-year and sequentially by 6%. And the non-asset-based revenue, which is predominantly 1/3 of that is the transaction revenue and then the application revenue, the call center that grew very well to around 28 percentage, which is kind of higher than what we have seen earlier quarters. So overall, from an MIF a perspective, a 21% growth, flat the increase in AUM as well as some increase in the transaction revenue and the call center revenue.

The non-MF revenue has been a sweet story for us. As Anuj was mentioning, the growth has been significant. It's been 52% growth year-on-year and even on a sequential basis, 13% growth. the strategies that we put in place a couple of years back starting to play out in actual number of terms. We were eliminating things for a moment because it was an acquisition we did new New Year. The anonymous revenue has grown. This is driven by growth across this item it is not limited to 1 sector, which is ASKs grown by around 24%, Pay by 24% [indiscernible] at 90%. So across all the investments that we have made, the growth has been seen, which is heartening to see given that it's not one area.

So the non-MF growth over and above the base of MF. MF has grown 21%, but non-MF grown 52%. So which means that overall, the share of non-MF 13.5%, which is what we on the initial slides has gone up from 11% to 13.5% on a year-on-year basis. That is 250 basis points up on the back of a huge growth in the AUM and the AM revenue also. So which is very scalable from our perspective. The yields have broadly been in line with probably the lower end of what we expected, but probably been in line with the growth in AUM. We do not see a big disruption happening in the yields going forward. What you will see is what we guided last quarter.

It is continue to see some ipation because of the telescopic pricing and probably minor price adjustments, but no big disruption articulation in need is seen over the next few quarters. So that's a revenue perspective. It has been a very strong performance from our profit EBITDA, PBT tax and operating EBITDA 36.1% is the highest we have seen in the last 2 years. it's up 220 basis points year-on-year. So not only have we seen the margin grow in terms of absolute numbers, the margin has also expanded in terms of the percentage. So 220 bps year-on-year to 46.1%. And even on a quarter-on-quarter basis, we see more than 100 basis points uptick in the operating EBITDA. So INR 150 crores is the highest that we have seen in terms of EBITDA numbers for the company.

Going forward, we see that there will be some -- there could be some moderation because of the annual appraisal cycle coming in, in April. However, now we will look to mitigate it to the management possible extent. However, 40.1 is probably the higher end of what we will expect going forward. There could be some moderation in the next quarter or 2 because of these salary impact. However, we will work to kind of keep it within range or around 45 to 46 percentage. From

a PBT, again, we've seen a big increase in the margins and our 350 bps up year-on-year and 200 bps up quarter-on-quarter to 41.9%. And the PAT for the quarter, for the first time, we crossed the INR 100 crore number of INR 103.5 crores of PAT, which is very healthy 32.2%. PAT Up almost 39% year-on-year and 16% quarter-on-quarter. So again, a very strong growth that we have seen in profit higher than what we have seen in the revenue numbers, which is, again, pointing out to the good cost control and the operating leverage that we are seeing.

The return on network was around 47% is again very high on a quarter-on-quarter basis, and we ended the quarter and the year with a very comfortable cash and cash equivalent position of around INR 618 crores of cash. As the Board was pleased to recommend a dividend of INR 16.5, which will be taken up by your shareholders for final approval at AGM on July. Overall, this strong quarter, even if you see the trend that has been there published in the earnings presentation, you will see for the last 2 years, there has been a consistent increase in the margins, starting with 41% we saw in FY '23 Q1 to 46.1% that we are seeing also it's been kind of increase across 2 years because the margins refer to what we are seeing now.

Here, I'll just spend a minute or 2 on the yearly numbers. We ended the year with a INR 1,136 crores overall revenue number, which is up 17% year-on-year. This is up INR 165 crores in overall revenue. It's a very healthy growth year. And you've seen the last couple of quarters have actually accelerated this growth when you compare to the first 2 quarters. So we have announced good bite on that. And overall, MS has grown INR 115 crores, which is again very healthy. And nonengeven on a year-on-year basis, as going to be 51 percentage, which is we are at almost INR 150 crores of non-MF revenue driven by -- across all sectors, which is AIF, payments, KRA and the software businesses. Everything has grown more than 25 percentage or close to that to ensure that overall non-MF growth comes to around 51 percentage.

The annual profits also again very healthy. We have entered the year with a PAT of INR 353 crores, a margin of 30%, which was around 28.5% in the last year. So the story has been strong revenue growth, Mutual fund driven by assets, yield broadly holding in line. The non-MF growing very high to 50-plus percentage of year-on-year in growth and the profit margins reflecting a good control over expenses as well as operating leverage in a very, very healthy numbers of 46.1%.

So this is a snapshot of the financial numbers for the quarter and for the year. So I will just hand it back to the moderator Neha, and she can open it up for questions.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions]

The first question is from the line of Supratim Datta from Ambit Capital.

[Supratim Dutta, analyst]

I have 2 questions, particularly on the insurance repository business and the CRA business. So on the insurance repository business, you talked about how the defined regulation mandate slowing policies in that account. Just wanted to understand then how will you drive consumers towards moving away from PDF copy towards your EIA accounts? How would this journey be facilitated by a player like CAMS or it has to be facilitated by the insurance company. in which case, this would take longer to happen the transition from PDF to EIA accounts? That's the first question.

The second question on the CRA business. We understand that recently, the government has opened up the EAP by business to other players as well beyond protein. So just wanted to understand how do you see the opportunity in this business? And how do you look at scaling that up? Those are my 2 questions.

[Anuj Kumar, executive]

So on the first part, think of it this way that any digital issuance electronic issuance of policy like an attachment to an e-mail or a digital [indiscernible] sector, does not have the intelligence that an EIA account has. So for example, you can have a single EIA account and within that, all the policies can be managed together, which means you can manage your metadata, which is your contact details name, address all of that, to make a single change, it flows to all the policies and then it flows back into your insurance records, which is not how PDF attachment works, that is just a PDF attachment you'll have to store somewhere.

But more than that, as you scale up, can you that reminders for payments of insurance premium. Can you pay an insurance premium through the EIA, the answers is yes. Can you sort of reminder, the answer is yes. Over a period of time, can you make claims through this utility? The answer is yes. whenever statute allows today, digital land market is not allowed in insurance, it is allowed in MS in the securities market, it is allowed not in the insurance market, whenever that happens. You know that a large part of the market borrows money to pay their premiums, which means you have an annual premium due on 1st of June and May you just borrow against your policy where you have, let's say, a surrender value of INR 10 lakh. That sort of thing is still done on paper.

To facilitate all of those things. And today, you know in the securities market, very elegant APIs are available where in 3 or 4 minutes, you can get early and making an verification of assets. And then the limit is made available to you the money lines up in your bank account. All that is not available in insurance. So those things can only happen through the EIA account. Think of it as exactly the meterage of what happens in the demat account, the securities, demat account. So the advantages are legendary, and are fairly significant and consumers will start adopting.

But to create financial infrastructure, what do you need? First of all, each one of us should have an EIA account, and I'm very sure that among the people on this call, everyone will not have. we should have moved the policies there. And the third is that all the insurance sector participants, largely insurance companies, should be on a seamless data exchange just like today, the mutual fund companies are the RPS and the repostories are that journey to be undertaken. We're not take very long. We'll not take -- I don't think like 5 or 6 years, may take a couple of years. As that happens, the significant advantage of EIA will get established. That's part one. That's the first of your questions.

The second is that on the CRA, this the policy class, which is AP, the [indiscernible] user, which has been eyeballed for quite some time now by the regulator in terms of allowing the the CRAs to participate. They have made formal notification recently. It's a mass-market product. It is consumed in large numbers. But of course, the pricing, et cetera, is very, very thin. Like you know, in most of these markets price then. But this is significantly then because it is committed as a social onto delivery to a certain fraction of our population. So we are excited. We are excited that APYs are opening up. we have the capability because all of that is a base requirement to you getting the license. So we have the capability to participate and we will soon begin participating how the numbers will pan out, how do you penetrate those markets, et cetera, will become visible in a period of time. But yes, it's a great announcement, and we are excited about it.

[Supratim Dutta, analyst]

Perfect. And just one question over there. So could you get the existing customers who would already be on APY with protein. Could you get a share within that existing customer base? Or is it mostly in the incremental new customers will you be getting the share?

[Anuj Kumar, executive]

So what happens is what interest capabilities switch is available as a part of the architecture, just like you've seen in mobile number portability, et cetera, most consumers do not switch. So getting consumers to switch to build a marketplace is it an easy task and even perhaps the cornerstone of our strategy, selling new is. So that's how this market will also progress.

[Supratim Dutta, analyst]

Understood. Just 1 last question on the MF business. So just wanted to understand that like going into FY '25, are there any major contracts which are coming up for renegotiation?

[Sesha Ramcharan, executive]

So like you know, typically, these contracts hold out for 3, 4 or 5 years, some for 2. So there are some contracts where the dialogue is undergoing, which were due either on first and or 1st of April. And we are in the process of speaking to the clients and then second down on a price regime, which will hold out for the future. So there are a set of clients.

[Supratim Dutta, analyst]

Understood. Can you quantify what would be the share of AUM or number of contracts that could be up for [indiscernible]?

[Anuj Kumar, executive]

So I'll just say a couple of things.Yes, there is a cycle, right? So if you have 20 customers, you would assume that every year at least 4 will come up for renewal. So I don't think this year is going to be any different, given that we enter into this renewal at different periods of time. So nothing extraordinary from that perspective. The one thing that I will add is that it's not going to be something that's going to be a steep kind of a discount give away given that a lot of these customers have decent stage, where the marginal cost for them is actually not huge, right? While there could be some impact that they will have on the TR ratios and some other stuff. But what we expect is a moderate kind of impact on all 3 things. And I don't think this will disturb the usual form of AUM growth of this AMP growth that we have been used to.

The only thing that I will say is that this is a routine development that keeps happening every year. Nothing exceptional is expected on this.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions]

The next question is from the line of Devesh Agarwal from IIFL Securities.

[Devesh Agarwal, analyst]

Many congratulations on great set of numbers. My first question is on the mutual fund business. Do you see that there's a 2.3% sequential decline in the yields for a 10% growth in the EIA, and this is despite the business point recently equity share of GA. So just wanted to understand better is this you think the new normal run for a 10% increase in the renew that you should expect or were there any investment in 4Q that led to a slightly higher moderation in [indiscernible]?

[Sesha Ramcharan, executive]

So Davis, I will answer that question, no, there was no adjustment or anything that happened. You've seen that, in fact, earlier quarter, you saw more than normal kind of fee growth to AUM growth. It was kind of format 90-plus percentage. Some quarters, depending on which customer grows from a scale perspective. there will be some adjustments. Yes, it is on the lower side of our expectation in terms of what the yield will be, but not very different from what you see. If the AUM growth to AMP growth, we are again plus 60-plus percentage in terms of just the 70 percentage is the normal. So I don't think that we need to make an adjustment on our assumptions. I think going forward, what we have projected in terms of A&P growth, plus or minus a few percentage will play out. You will see that in Q1 also. So no adjustment is needed, and it's not as if a big price reduction was given or something happened in the last quarter. It's more kind of a growth that's happened in some of the scale customers, which marginally add the [indiscernible] yield to us.

I don't think that -- that not necessary a period of plan has been our experience. So no major change in assumptions is actually needed for this.

[Devesh Agarwal, analyst]

Understood, sir. And secondly, sir, within the mutual fund non-asset base revenue has been growing in line with the asset-based revenues at least for the FY '24. So do you expect this to continue that the growth in the non-asset based revenues will be similar to what you see in asset-based? Or this is expected to slow down, given that there's an increase in digitization of transactions and the revenues from [indiscernible]?

[Sesha Ramcharan, executive]

So Devesh, there are 4 aspects in this non-AMC, right, which is: one is the transaction fee, which is again going up. But do you see that overall percentage of say static, right? It's between 8% to 11% page of paper transition will continue to come. And an agile number, they are not going down at all. But there are other components of this also, which is the call center, which is kind of more and more reasons to get added and then there is this entire mucins an application fee. As we kind of broaden our base, we have more and more people subscribing to our applications to our APIs, et cetera. which is a part of this. And then there's outpaces in over cost on because always, there is an increase in the volume of transactions, which is into it -- for example, you'll stop you lean lesser [indiscernible] or e-mails or the [indiscernible], et cetera.

So I do understand that the growth this quarter has been a little higher than what we are used to. I don't see any big moderation happening in the growth given that the paper transaction continue to be the range one in terms of the [indiscernible] total transactions. And the other components of this non-asset based on an upward trajectory even when the digital at can happen, it's not related to that average.

[Devesh Agarwal, analyst]

Understood, sir. And sir my last question would be on the [indiscernible] business. Seeing a very healthy growth especially in the fourth quarter. So I wanted to understand what would be the ones which we see the maximum growth in FY '25? And also your thoughts around growth acquisition given that both and Aglo360 have been good acquisition for us. So what are the areas that we will target, which are kind of grow through acquisition or inorganic group? That was question.

[Anuj Kumar, executive]

So if you see last year, which is FY '24. What added to the momentum of non-MF is KRA is the biggest engine, [indiscernible] as the second and ARR is the third. And I think in this year, I'm expecting the same to happen, which means these 3 will remain the engines, which will drive the growth. account aggregator as a fourth engine was great in percentage growth, but the base is so small that absolute growth at company level has not been impacted. I'm expecting FY '25 account aggregator will also start making its presence felt in terms of making at least some improvement to company financials very small, but it will do that. So 3 of it as a KRA and AR in the lead account aggregator somewhere there. So then what it leads is 2 franchises, 1 is insurance where we said that the bile environmentally, everything sounds very good. the exact niche to enter and then start scaling the adoption of EIA is perhaps still not 100% clear in the market there, not just as with everyone.

We are holding out the large share. But absolute growth in terms of policies or EIA accounts, et cetera, is still a moderate number. So something has to happen materially are the people to become a large franchise, adoption is very great or consumers wake up and they want to start adopting EIA accounts. that's 1 part which can play out I think is the other one, which can also play out. [indiscernible] is a small constituent. But like I said, it is doing some very meaningful work.

So when you look at plus 6, which is non-MF increase 6 [indiscernible], I think Pay, KRA, AIS has 3 leaders, account aggregator coming as the fourth, driving the engines. And then between insurance repository and Think where the percentage wasn't very high last year, if they are able to kind of be the penetration and scale up, then we could have them also participating. But the first 3 really will continue to lead the challenge. That was the first part of your question. The second, you asked about acquisitions and whether we have an intention whether we shortlist in things. So yes, we are looking at the market.

As usual, finding a good candidate in a good segment is always our intention. I can also tell you that while into was largely on the alternate side working with custodies and with the MMS. Think a core franchise is more on the lending side from the capital markets. We believe that a good could come talents and insurance. And more than that, I don't have hard to share because we haven't really thought sharper than that. We continue to stand the market all the time. I believe between payments and insurance, it could be a nice segment for us to think of the next target company. Then in how we will update you whenever that happens.

[Operator]

The next question is from the line of Abhijeet Sakhare from Kotak Securities.

[Abhijeet Sakhare, analyst]

Question on expense growth. Last year, we delivered about 15%. So looking forward to F '25, how should we think about it? I mean, part of it would obviously be driven by the revenue growth that we're able to achieve. But anything that's already kind of committed and part of the investment pipeline?

[Anuj Kumar, executive]

So Abhijeet, yes, we do not -- 2 things. One is that I indicated earlier, which is that the usual increase in salaries and given the market and given the technology focus that we have. continue to happen that's even in terms of what we do. So our overall expense growth, I think last time it was around 18% is what including 15% in terms of year-on-year. I do not foresee that the expense growth will be much larger than this. We do not have -- we continue to invest in the products, as I said, the run rate what the new platforms. We don't see that changing drastically either upwards or downwards in terms of what we invest. Obviously, the revenue that's coming out of it just next to nil. A few quarters back, it's now ramping up. So that will have a beneficial impact. But from an expense perspective, I don't think we're going to come down on our investments or moderate that to any extent.

So I don't think that you will see any difference in terms of difference in terms of expense growth for the next year for your projections. No exceptional expenses are being planned as of now from a revenue perspective. If and when there is some concrete plan on rearchitecting platform, et cetera, we will come back with proper explanation for that.

And that will be more kind of a long-term platform building, not a short-term operating expenses kind of a ramp-up that you will see. So the short answer is we don't expect exceptional expenses coming up for the next year, and it will be in line with what you are seeing now. Obviously, as we go along, we might see some strains on salary cost or we make moderate salary cost that depends on for the market base, but overall, not much of a difference.

[Abhijeet Sakhare, analyst]

In the 1 data question, what's the current headcount? And if you can split it up between MF and other business?

[Anuj Kumar, executive]

The current head count is around 7,800. This includes around 1,200 people in the front office for MF and around 2,500 people in the back office for then that includes around 800 technology-related resources. And then there are about 100 in risk and compliance. And the risks are restricted to corporate support the new businesses that we are into in terms of retail have around 100 people, then possibly will have around 250 people. KRL will have 150 people. So that's always just split.

[Operator]

The next question is from the line of Prayesh Jain from Motilal Oswal Financial Services Limited.

[Prayesh Jain, analyst]

Congratulation on a great set of numbers. Firstly, on the margin front, what would be active you move to and if you could give some granularity as to how much of the increase in margins is coming in from the new businesses? And how much is from the scale-up in the MF business? So some understanding as to and that will help us think about the margins in FY '25 and beyond. So how should we kind of think about did mention about the cost and in your be able to maintain margins between 45%, 46%. But if you could help us understand the quality of the margins in the MF and the non-MF business, that would be helpful?

And just in that context, it will be great if you could start sharing some information on the subsidiaries on a quarterly level in terms of profit and [indiscernible]. That's just a few remarks. That will be my first question.

[Sesha Ramcharan, executive]

We've taken that feedback. And just we do track from -- I just give a caveat that all the non enough business are not homogeneous, and we don't follow the same pattern in terms of market pricing, target markets, et cetera, revenue model, et cetera. But then this was the ease of understanding, I kind of put it into MF and non-MF bucket. We have seen a creep up in the margins of non-MF given that the platform businesses are they predominantly or on businesses. We've seen what needs to be a 15% kind of overall EBITDA level across all business has now cut up to more than 20%. We still feel that there is room for growth on that. We think the steady state is probably close to 35% to 40% given the nature of these businesses, but it will take time to come there. But we've seen a good growth from an overall perspective from the non-MF business also. But the bulk of the market increase is growing from the mutual fund business.

What you see is obviously earlier it used to be a depletion in margin because of the non-MF business. What we are seeing now, they're also starting to contribute incrementally to the margin growth. And hence, we don't see this reversing. The only reason why I kind of wanted to moderate, and Anuj also mentioned this earlier, to moderate the expectations for the next quarter or 2 is the annual cycle that comes from the salary increase.

So traditionally, our impact has been about a couple of percentage on the sales has been the impact on the salary appraisal. Obviously, we would try to mitigate that to the extent possible product it increases and automation, et cetera. But the caveat has always been that in a quarter or the next quarter or 2, you might see some moderation in margins. But I think that a steady-state margin would be around 45 percentage.

In a good quarter, it comes to 46, in a bad quarter a couple of basis points less than that, but that's the reasonable number that we are seeing. On your subsidiaries performance and profit margin, we've considered that feedback, we will kind of definitely consider publishing the results for the next quarter.

[Prayesh Jain, analyst]

And now coming to the AIS business, and that has been 1 of our key focus areas and drivers. What I look at is quarterly, there is on a sequential basis, there is no major increase in revenues. That is the way we calculate it or whatever percentage share you give, we calculate the numbers, applying that to the total revenues. From that, I'm seeing that the revenues are kind of flattish, right, sequentially. Why would that happen in a market where equities have been and AIS would have done well. So any or any thoughts there?

[Sesha Ramcharan, executive]

I think we have grown reasonably well quarter-on-quarter. Even the last quarter, I think we grew on a quarter-on-quarter basis 5 percentage, which is I think a decent number to grow. The nature of business is that you will have to keep repolishing the business as and when the funds like go away. I think we're doing a decent job of that. And we have the new lines coming in, in terms of the WealthTrak and WealthServ is onboarding as well as analytics module. And GipCity, the a lot of sign-ups have happened, but we ramp up in the business is expected to start off shortly. So I think we are doing decent on a quarter-on-quarter basis.

And we only expect this strategy to be higher as we go forward as we just -- the products that we have launched to become more industrialized in terms of adoption accurately give City revenue going up, which we have a lot of sign-ups in the dicty, but I think for the actual operations to start will take some time. So I think we are [indiscernible] good wicket on this.

[Prayesh Jain, analyst]

Even this would be [indiscernible] be linked to AUM growth in this business, too?

[Sesha Ramcharan, executive]

So most of our billing is actually less than 25% is AUM-based billing. Most of the billing is dependent on the number of investors who are onboarded to a particular scheme, which is the way that the customers are moving towards. I know the completion has got a different view on this. But what we are seeing in the market is that the customers are preferring or, in fact, are insisting that the revenue for the RPA be linked to the number of investors being serviced rather than the AIF. And we see that that's also reasonable given the nature of the AIF business given the large ticket prices and onetime drawdown and investor servicing requirements being tied to that rather than to a commitment or AUM. So that's the way the revenue model is developing in AIF.

[Prayesh Jain, analyst]

Last question on the taxes, what would be your current cash position? And how is there any -- so the entire cash would be available to shareholders, right? And what would be the [indiscernible]? That was my las question.

[Sesha Ramcharan, executive]

The closing cash position, we had at 31st March was INR 617 crores. This is before the recommended dividend. The dividend, I think the board account at INR 16.5 per share. That's -- if the shareholders do approve that, it becomes a payout around INR 80 crores, INR 81 crores. So if you -- even after that, we will have excess of INR 525 crores, INR 530 crores of cash on the books. That is some minimum net worth requirements for specific businesses. It could be INR 25 crores for the pay business. It's probably a little less for the RPA businesses. But keeping all those things aside, the cash question is extremely comfortable and surplus.

Anuj was mentioning this earlier, that is -- we are on scanning the ecosystem for possible inorganic growth opportunities. So 1 possible use of the cash is when we are ever candidate for this inorganic growth. Another part the Board will take a call on whether that's an appropriate way to move forward for us. But for that, the entire cash is definitely available for the shareholders barring from minimum net worth requirements for the user businesses. And use would be dividend and more dividend and [indiscernible] we desire and innovate acquisition, which definitely we are looking out for. That will be the better use for the cash that we have.

[Operator]

The next question is from the line of Dipanjan Ghosh from Citi Group.

[Dipanjan Ghosh, analyst]

Just a few questions from my side. First, going back to the AIF segment. You obviously don't give the number of investors in your disclosures and AUM is only data front that we get. On that, over the last let's say, first half versus third quarter versus fourth quarter, we have seen some increase in calculate revenue as a bit of AUM. Now is it a function of new clients getting onboarded or the wealth platforms on the modules, digital onboarding model that you have kind of maybe sold to customers? So I just wanted to get a sense of what is your recurring sort of revenue growth in this segment versus, let's say, if there is any one-off sort of upfront income that you're booking? Because of this rapid growth in the new clientele that you're onboarding.

Second, as you said correctly alluded that your competition has taken a different view on this segment. So from a structural perspective, do you really see pricing being stable in this segment? Or should can one see some amount of volatility out there?

Second question will be on the entire non-MF businesses. Now you alluded to the fact that first within this segment, obviously, some advantages in terms of both client recognition and trust. Having said that, you also alluded to the fact that it can be replicated over a period of time by competitors. Given that some of segments are quite nascent and maybe not duopolistic in nature. What is the pricing you are seeing in any of these non-MF business. Is it sustainable from perpetual perspective? Or can there be some amount of volatility?

Lastly, 2 datakeeping questions. One is if you can give your KRA revenue mix for FY '20, '24 as a percentage of your -- sorry, for FY '20, '23 as a percentage of your overall revenues? And the second one is 7,800 employee base, if you can just tag it between permanent and contractual?

[Sesha Ramcharan, executive]

Okay. So that's quite a few questions. I'm just thinking which order to answer them in. But let me just take your question on non-MF and nondupolistic markets. And that is true that across these markets, pricing plays out in a very different way. There are 1 or 2 markets where you could have a base pricing or more uniform pricing. KRA is 1 example where there is a set of 3 or 4 participants. And therefore, selling on price hasn't been a [indiscernible] feature of that marketplace. That market place can be counted as a stable market despite having competitor.

But if you go anywhere else, if you go to deposits, where the price of converting a policy or the annual maintenance it perhaps 1/2 to 1/3 of what it used to be 5 years back. If you see account aggregator where the price of a single data pool, is half to 1/3 to 1/4 and sometimes lesser of what it used to be at 1x. And if you take payments, where as the ticket size falls, the INR 2 to INR 3 per trigger that is the standard price, we try to accommodate our clients, let's say, somebody is launching INR 100 of IP collection even smaller ones, we do accommodate.

So therefore, not that in the MF, RTA business, there is some great advantage of price. You have seen that despite being the 2-player market, it does see a bit of price erosion. In the others, I think they are as competitive markets as you've seen anywhere else. And for a lot of them, pricing is perhaps getting to a stable place. Because if you see a pricing is perhaps sub INR 2 at times and INR 1 per pull. If you see policy conversion and maintenance, which used to be upwards of INR 10, there are places where it could get sold for half the price, and that is 2 of payments, too.

So we don't worry too much about predatory pricing because a lot of these competitors are stable, which means that on a time to just gain share basis asymmetry in price is something we don't see often prices have, in general, as consumption goes up, prices windle down. You've seen that in all these 3 markets. So in the new market, we've seen that is a stable market, more than 10 years old, we've seen that, and so is payments.

So I don't think there is cause to vary about pricing depletion as 1/4 of nature, which is going to hit us in the face. It is something that we deal with every day, every month. It's like focus and manufacturers of for car manufacturers perhaps behave the same way, the threats are the same, the opportunities are the same. We have a stated position of not being a price player. So that is one thing we do not sell unless it's a relationship deal or a client who really want to be with. We don't surprise what our competition does is obviously evident to you, a lot of the unlisted, and therefore, you see how they strategize on the market. So that's how I would answer your question number 3.

I'm thinking of what...

[Anuj Kumar, executive]

So on your question on AIF. So to just -- well, almost all the revenue is annually in nature. It's not a onetime revenue that we book. There is some amount of implementation for the onboarding platform, but that's insignificant when compared to the overall revenue. even in [indiscernible] only do you have implemention or but you also have an AMC cost that we build. It's not some onetime revenue that's booked to ensure that is kind of causing the increase in the yield of growth that you're seeing. It's kind of what happens is the fund lives will fall off and you facilitate late. So if at all, there is some fluctuations in the revenue, it will be because of the life of the fund and not because of our billing model.

And we continue to see whatever plus or minus, I think on the assets we see around 1.5 bps of yield that we continue to see across a reasonable period of time, probably it might vary from 1 quarter to the quarter, Again, that's not how we build, but just for reference, you can probably have that as the numbers.

From -- I think you also asked revenue -- 7,800 employees and how many are -- I think we have a policy that most of the employees are in-house. We have less than say 100 people who are probably vendors and all those things. So most of the employees are on roll and the hold of TAMs all its subsidiaries, and that's the split that we have.

KRA '20, '23 revenue, I think in some more detail, I can probably share the detail with you in terms of how the revenue was ramp-up. But suffice to say that this year has been exceptional in of revenue growth with a 90% growth, and our strategy has also changed on that. But the exact revenue of '20, '21, '23, I will properly separately.

[Dipanjan Ghosh, analyst]

Just to 1 small follow-up is employee number of 7,800, what total in '23 last year?

[Anuj Kumar, executive]

So we have added an average of 550 head count over the year-on-year basis. I mean for average for the period. It's not a start to end.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, we'll take this as the last question. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Ramcharan sir. Please, for the closing comments.

[Sesha Ramcharan, executive]

Thank you, Neha. And we thank all the participants, of course, taking time to be a part of this earnings call and your continuing interest in CAMS is appreciated. In case of any questions, please do reach out to Orient Capital or Anish Sawlani in Investor Relations in CAMS, and we'll be happy to respond. And thanks once again for your time and hoping to stay in touch and engage with you.

[Operator]

Thank you. On behalf of Computer Age Management Services Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.