Multi Commodity Exchange of India Ltd
NSE:MCX

Watchlist Manager
Multi Commodity Exchange of India Ltd Logo
Multi Commodity Exchange of India Ltd
NSE:MCX
Watchlist
Price: 6 422.6 INR -0.66% Market Closed
Market Cap: 327.5B INR
Have any thoughts about
Multi Commodity Exchange of India Ltd?
Write Note

Earnings Call Transcript

Earnings Call Transcript
2019-Q4

from 0
Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the MCX India Q4 FY '19 Earnings Conference Call. This conference call may contain forward-looking statements about the company, which are based on the beliefs, opinions and expectations of the company as of date of this call. These statements are not the guarantees of future performance and involves risk and uncertainties that are difficult to predict. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Mrugank Paranjape, MD and CEO. Thank you, and over to you sir.

M
Mrugank Madhukar Paranjape
MD, CEO & Executive Director

Thank you, and good evening, everyone. At the outset, apologies we had to reschedule the call a bit because our Board meeting extended beyond the time that we had, sort of, budgeted for, and thank you, therefore, for joining in. Let me just quickly start. Really feels happy to sort of come with a very good year's result that we had. Some highlights, which you would have seen in the press release already. In terms of the ADT, for the last quarter, we had an ADT of INR 26,981 crores. What is really reassuring there is that the third quarter itself was an all-time high after the levy of CTT. And after that, to get another all-time high was really pleasing. We have made an increase in the ADT on a -- over the third quarter itself, which to us is a reflection of the fact that participation overall in this market is going up and continues to do so.Some of the other highlights of our performance of last year, and again, very pleasing that in spite of the concerns around competition our full year market share is actually at a all-time high again of 91.6%. As of the registered clients, which is distinct PAN-based clients, we have crossed 30 lakh clients. And the traded unique clients for the exchange grew at a fairly good rate of 14%, and we crossed 3 lakh in this fiscal. So some of these numbers would give you an idea of why we believe that the overall growth and overall participation in this market has been consistently and continuously increasing. A few other things which happened last quarter. First, on cotton, we became the highest-traded agricultural contract in the country in the month of March. We also have more than 2 lakh bales of cotton in our warehouses. And in terms of base metals, we successfully completed the conversion of our aluminum contract in the last financial year. We are also on way to complete the conversion of our zinc contract and therefore, conversion of a cash-settled contract or physical contract, which probably was a concern at some point of time, has absolutely adequately been addressed in my opinion. We had successful deliveries in aluminum last month. We have -- already have people who have deposited zinc in our warehouses this month, which gives us the confidence that the conversion to a deliverable contract is on its way and should not pose any challenges to the exchange.Coming to what I always talk about, the 4 pillars of our growth and where we see ourselves in each of these pillars. So I think the progress over the last year on the distribution site has been absolutely pleasing. IDBI Capital Markets, BOB Capital Markets, Canara Bank are in the process of obtaining membership. SBICAP and Yes Securities have started doing trial runs of trading on the exchange. And therefore, it gives us confidence that almost all the bank subsidiaries are already on the platform.In terms of getting members to combine their memberships, I think we are now at a stage where maybe more than 50% of the key market is already moved into a unified license. We still believe that there is about 30, 35 more key members whom we need to move into that unified category. They are in process, and I think that is something which will stand us in good stead. Options, been a healthy growth in terms of what we've seen. We are talking about 500 plus crores on a daily basis. And I think in terms of traded clients, we are crossing 1,000 clients on a daily basis during the previous quarter. So I think -- again, sort of reconfirms what we had said that it's a slow build-out of any product. Options will take time. But we see that inching towards where we think is the final destination.On the regulatory developments, we had SEBI confirming something which the market was expecting for a very long time. At its largest Board meeting, SEBI announced that they would be permitting mutual funds and PMS participants in this market. It's been just about 2 months since then, we are now awaiting the guidelines, and we believe they should be out any time soon. Also in the next SEBI meeting, which comes up, I would think that we should definitely get approval for -- the approval to trade index products in this market. So I think products done, participants done and distribution done. With that in terms of how we do on expanding this market, I think MCX for the last year clocked more than 1,150 training programs. Our target for next year is another 200 plus more at about 1,350. So we believe we will continue to broad-base this market. We believe that with institutional participation, we will get better liquidity in the longer term. As some of you would have noticed, a contract like gold where we've had increased participation after some of the regulatory changes, we are now at a all-time high of 23 metric tons, which we achieved in the month of February in terms of the open interest in our gold futures contract. So one last point, and this was a data point, which some of you may have noticed that the WFE, which is the World Federation of Exchanges, releases its annual report, generally they release it at this point of time. For the year 2018, very glad that we are amongst the top 3 exchanges globally in terms of growth for 2018. And our growth was both in terms of value as well as in terms of volume by an almost identical 16%, which also sort of confirms what we have mentioned in the past that the underlying price of the commodities does not have too much of an impact in terms of the ADT of the exchange. And that's something which can be seen from these numbers.To reiterate, some of the highlight numbers that we had. ADT has grown 21% on a year-on-year basis. For the corresponding quarter last year, it's grown 13%. Our EBITDA is up 17% on a year-on-year basis. The profit before tax has grown 20% from INR 147 crores to INR 176.97 crores, and the full year PAT is grown 35% from INR 108.36 crores to INR 146.24 crores. On the dividend, very happy that the Board has, consistent with what we have been doing for the last couple of years, decided to actually distribute almost all of the earnings that we had. So we are proposing a dividend of INR 20 per share, which effects a payout ratio of just about 90.5% to 91%.In addition to this, there are 2 highlight numbers that we always speak about and I think we'd like to draw your attention to these. So one that the controllable expenses, as we call them, which in our case, as you know, is basically all the expenses outside of product license fees, software license fees that we pay for our core trading platform and the regulatory fees. So in those expenses, for the full year FY '18, '19, we have spent INR 146.5 crores as compared to INR 147.75 crores. So we have actually spent almost a percentage less. And as we have been communicating to all our investors, we believe that we should always remain within the 2% over the previous year number. So being 1% below is actually a very, very good outcome that we think we have achieved. And in this, I must point out that there are some expenses, which are again one-offs and we believe will not happen in the next year. And therefore, there is an element of efficiency for us to manage the similar budgets for next year as well. So again, we continue with that sort of a target for ourselves that we will not let the fixed cost, as we say, grow more than 2% per annum on a year-on-year basis. With that, I'm through with what I wanted to say. I've got Sanjay with me. Sanjay probably will just want to add a little bit on why you've done a good job in terms of managing our tax outflow this year.

S
Sanjay Wadhwa
Chief Financial Officer

Okay. So we had one very good upside this year. So our trading corporation got operational on 1st of September. And there is a requirement that the exchange should contribute 25% to the core settlement guarantee fund. As a result, the company contributed INR 79.38 crores during the year. And this is an allowable expenditure from a tax perspective. This has resulted in a MAT payout for the year and a corresponding MAT credit entitlement of INR 20.65 crores primarily because we are very confident that we will be able to absorb this MAT out of the future tax payables.

M
Mrugank Madhukar Paranjape
MD, CEO & Executive Director

I think with that, our update is done. We are happy to take questions. So please, we can start on that.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from the line of Viraj Kacharia from Securities Investment Managers.

V
Viraj Kacharia
Senior Analyst

Congratulation on a good set of numbers. I just had a couple of questions. First is if you can elaborate a bit more on the participation from banks, other distributors, and you also talked about PMS and mutual funds. So where we are with respect to the onboarding? And how much further in terms of growth do we see from this area?

M
Mrugank Madhukar Paranjape
MD, CEO & Executive Director

So I think -- look, we have consistently maintained that the bank distributors will be an additive number to this market. Our understanding is that the bank distributors are anywhere between a 30%, 40% of the equities market today, which means that over a longer term, we expect these people -- these participants to add at least 15%, 20% to the pie when it comes to commodities. Because not every one of their customers is probably a new customer, but there's probably some overlap. So even after factoring for that, the overall growth potential for bank distributors is in the range of 15%, 20%. Having said that, what we need to do is to make sure that all bank distributors are onboarded. And towards that, except for ICICI Securities, which is still WRT, every other bank subsidiary, if I must say so, which is meaningful and large is already onboarded. So you should see significant contribution coming from these guys. The first one which started about 5.5 months ago, we believe, is already doing a very good number. And we should expect all of the bank subsidies to start contributing very healthily by the second quarter of this year to our overall turnover.

V
Viraj Kacharia
Senior Analyst

With respect to the PMS and mutual fund, I mean [indiscernible] we expect to?

M
Mrugank Madhukar Paranjape
MD, CEO & Executive Director

So like I mentioned earlier in the call, SEBI Board approved the participation of PMS and mutual funds in the Board meeting, which I think happened on the 28th of February at SEBI. This Board meeting said that the detailed guidelines will come out. Our past experience has been that it takes roughly about this time for the detailed guidelines to come out after a SEBI Board resolution. So I think this is the time -- anytime now we are expecting the guidelines to come through. In terms of our discussions with the market and their -- it's not so much with the PMS participants because they are anyways sort of dealing with HNIs who are used to this market. But more in terms of the mutual funds, there are at least 6, 7 mutual funds who are in active, sort of, discussions in terms of what type of products they could get into this market as and when the actual permission comes through. So we are really confident that as and when SEBI announces the detailed guidelines, a couple of these mutual funds will immediately launch their schemes.

V
Viraj Kacharia
Senior Analyst

Okay. Second question was on the product side. If you look at IEX, they have launched a spot cash product. So for us, do we have the product ready enough and -- for cash, if you can comment on that. And also with respect to index products, I didn't quite get it. I mean, are we now expecting -- I mean, is there any time line by which we expect approval from SEBI? If you can just provide on that -- color some on that part as well.

M
Mrugank Madhukar Paranjape
MD, CEO & Executive Director

Okay. So the first one, spot commodities is not coming under SEBI at all by regulation. Therefore, we don't have any answer to that in terms of whether it will come onto this platform. As a general update, yes, we have been always mentioning that we believe that the regulatory environment in this country is wanting to create platforms in which spot commodities can be traded on an exchange type of platform. And in that, there may be some announcements, but we don't have any firm time line. From an MCX perspective, we are ready as and when there is an announcement and whether it is in bullion, whether it is in natural gas or any other commodity, we will be there to participate and create a spot platform for commodities. As to your second question, like I again said in the call earlier, there is an expectation given all the feedback that the market has provided that at the next meeting that SEBI has, they will approve index products in commodity derivatives. But that's something which we really can't have a time line beyond this.

V
Viraj Kacharia
Senior Analyst

Okay. Just last question was on the delivery center. I mean -- so with respect to delivery centers, how is our preparedness? And if you look at global experience, where would India be with respect to that?

M
Mrugank Madhukar Paranjape
MD, CEO & Executive Director

So one, I think, there's no comparison between India and global because I think these are very distinct markets. As far as India is concerned, I think we have the delivery centers in as many products as we need, and we don't see any issues in terms of addressing that requirement.

Operator

The next question is from the line of Dhwanil Desai from Turtle Capital.

D
Dhwanil Desai
Founder

So I have two questions. So first is with respect to onboarding of mutual funds after the guidelines come out, do we also need to iron out the same things on the custodian side as we had to do on the AIF? Or that issue is sorted for all the institutional participants going forward?

M
Mrugank Madhukar Paranjape
MD, CEO & Executive Director

Our understanding is that, that issue is completely sorted for all participants. There's no question of any roll back -- any need for doing anything else there. The custodial guidelines clarification was issued by SEBI at the end of 2018. Under those guidelines, we also understand that at least a couple of custodians have already applied to SEBI. Because under those guidelines, custodians needed to get a formal approval done from SEBI for offering custodial services in the commodities segment. We understand that a couple of the custodians would have already applied for this license as well. So I don't think there is any stumbling block from a custodial participation perspective.

D
Dhwanil Desai
Founder

Okay. So FY '20, we can see some kind of a mutual fund onboarding happening on MCX post guidelines, right?

M
Mrugank Madhukar Paranjape
MD, CEO & Executive Director

Absolutely.

D
Dhwanil Desai
Founder

Okay. Okay. And my second question is with respect to index products. And I think it's more about -- I mean it's a very new product for Indian market. But if you can share the experience of how the index products are now across-the-world do in the commodity exchanges and what kind of contribution they bring. And are they, in terms of contribution, significantly lower or higher than the options for us? If you can throw light on that.

M
Mrugank Madhukar Paranjape
MD, CEO & Executive Director

So I think, as a contribution, index is not a very, very widely-traded product globally. In fact, there are only a few indexes, which are very popular and traded in a big manner. Having said that, I think from an Indian market perspective, we need to take this with the sort of understanding that the Indian market has shown enormously large appetite for index-based products when it comes to the derivatives market, especially in the way the equities market is operating. And therefore, I think we can expect slightly better percentages, but very difficult to give a guesstimate on the numbers.

D
Dhwanil Desai
Founder

Okay. And my last question is on the options. Have we started charging for the option contracts yet? Or...

M
Mrugank Madhukar Paranjape
MD, CEO & Executive Director

No, we haven't yet started charging for the options contracts. After much deliberation, I think, we decided to wait for another quarter. And this is a decision which we'll take by the end of June whether we want to start charging or not.

Operator

The next questions from the line of from [ Shibrata Akhuli ] from [ Adcoast Capital ].

U
Unknown Analyst

I just want to know what is the average realization per crore of turnover in this quarter?

S
Sanjay Wadhwa
Chief Financial Officer

Just one second. So the realization in this quarter is 2.16 per lakh.

Operator

The next question is from the line of from Prashant Tiwari from SBICAP Securities.

P
Prashant Tiwari
Research Analyst

Can you help me understand what is the target that we can look for or a achievable number for the participation of mutual funds and PMS? Like looking from global experience, how much have they achieved in terms of institutional participation as a total -- as a percent of total value? And what time has it taken for them to reach that?

M
Mrugank Madhukar Paranjape
MD, CEO & Executive Director

So I think tough question. A, we won't be able to give any sort of a guidance in terms of what number we should be looking at. As we've always said, I think, institutional participation is important not so much from the perspective that it will probably add to the ADT because one doesn't expect the institutions to really churn their portfolio so fast. What it will add to is the depth of the contract, because we expect institutions to be having long-term money and long-term money, therefore, should be chasing the far end of the contract. And that is really where we believe the value of getting institutions will be. So one of the complaints, which is generally held against all Indian derivative contracts, is that we do not have enough depth in the far end. And I think that is something that we are hoping institutions will address. It will also address the need of getting more retail into this market. But again, will it really add to a lot of trading volumes? May not.

P
Prashant Tiwari
Research Analyst

Okay. But in your experience of the global exchanges, do we have some understanding what share do they have in total trading?

M
Mrugank Madhukar Paranjape
MD, CEO & Executive Director

I don't think we have that sort of a number for the global exchanges, but you could separately get back to Sanjay. He'll try and get that number for you.

Operator

The next question is from the line of Ashish Chopra for Motilal Oswal.

A
Ashish Chopra
Research Analyst

Mrugank, just had a couple of questions. One on the progress of maybe hedgers coming onto the platform. So we had these regulations, which were kind of compelling, at least the bullion trade has to come on -- and head onto the Indian exchanges. So just wanted to know from you as to how has that impacted? And at least in that particular segment, are we seeing more hedging? And with the delivery ecosystem now coming in, what has been the early experience with respect to the other segments as well?

M
Mrugank Madhukar Paranjape
MD, CEO & Executive Director

Sorry, Ashish, thanks for the question. On the bullion side, and I think more specifically in gold where we had this change of regulation, it's been an enormously positive response from the participants. So like I mentioned, in the gold futures we hit an all-time high of 22.8 metric tons in terms of the end-of-day open interest. Intraday, it was even higher. And this is an all-time high since the levy of CTT. Correspondingly, even the OI of gold options has gone up to about 4.65 metric tons. So I think two numbers, which is generally the open interest, it tells you the depth of the market and the hedgers that are participating. Obviously, a very positive response. And this is not limited to where you see something happening only in terms of gold. But overall, we have a fairly good increase in terms of the hedgers across all our contracts. So whether it is even cotton or whether it is mentha or any of these contracts, I think hedgers in the exchange has gone up over the years in a very healthy manner.

A
Ashish Chopra
Research Analyst

Okay. And against the constraint in the form of depth as far as the far-duration contracts go, I would have assumed that to still have been a challenge for hedging at least as far as the other segments go. So -- but do you see that also probably gradually beginning to get addressed with options? Or that is still some way away and will need some of these mutual funds to really start participating so that can be resolved?

M
Mrugank Madhukar Paranjape
MD, CEO & Executive Director

So I think -- options I don't think is really going to help us in that perspective. I believe we -- we hold the view that it is the mutual fund institutional participation, which will help the far end of the contract.

A
Ashish Chopra
Research Analyst

Okay. Okay. And just lastly for my side, any thoughts that you would have now maybe throughout the course of your incurring on the technology bit now. I mean, there is still some time as far as the contract with FT comes in. But you've, I think, also mentioned an option of maybe owning technology at MCX. And part of your cash may also be kept aside for that sort of an eventuality. Would you have maybe formalized and finalized your thoughts? Or would you have a skew towards one option versus the other just yet?

M
Mrugank Madhukar Paranjape
MD, CEO & Executive Director

No. I think at this point of time, the exchange will evaluate all its options. I think the eventuality in terms of how we treat our engagement on the 63 Moons contract is still far away. And we would like to do as much as evaluation that we can. So absolutely no news. The good part that we have always maintained is that our technology is really doing well. So there's no pressing need or hurry for us to look at something as yet.

Operator

The next question is from the line of Meet Jigani, an individual investor.

M
Meet Jagani

If I see there is thousands and crores lying in the balance sheet idle. So any near-term plan for rewarding the shareholders? If not, then how do you see this idle cash lying in the balance sheet as beneficial to the company in such an adequate model?

M
Mrugank Madhukar Paranjape
MD, CEO & Executive Director

So I think, Meet, we've mentioned this consistently that we believe that there are a couple of requirements, which are uncertain in terms of how they will pan out over the next couple of years. The first one is how much we need to invest in terms of technology. The second is the fact that the regulators have been speaking about opening up spot markets, and that may require setting up of separate companies and investment into those subsidiaries. And beyond these two, there is still the fact that competition in this segment is extremely hot, and our competitors continue to price their products at 0 pricing. So I think for these three eventualities, we believe that the company should conserve cash for another couple of years. And therefore, there is no immediate plan to reduce the cash on the balance sheet. But consistent to what we have been communicating to all of you, we have tried to pay out as much as we could in terms of this year's earnings. So like we've said, the dividend represents about 91% of the accrued earnings for this year. And we'll be -- the payout ratio is going to be 91% this year.

M
Meet Jagani

Okay. Is MCX looking into block chain technology, Mrugank?

S
Sanjay Wadhwa
Chief Financial Officer

I mean...

M
Meet Jagani

Are there any plans being the biggest exchange of India?

M
Mrugank Madhukar Paranjape
MD, CEO & Executive Director

So I think any new technology is something which we keep exploring. But as you might have read about the block chain, when we are talking of the sort of latency numbers that we are talking about, block chain is really not a reality for an exchange type of business. Where block chain is probably a feasible idea is in post trade. But there again, it's something which we will be looking at. Nothing yet or no immediate plans to go live with the block chain technology.

Operator

The next question is from line of Kunal Thanvi from Banyan Tree Advisors.

K
Kunal Thanvi

Congratulation on the good set of numbers. So I had 2 questions. One was on, if we can have a bifurcation between hedgers, speculators and traders, a very ballpark number would help. And second would be on the MAT credit activity. This would be one-time credit, right? Is this understanding right?

M
Mrugank Madhukar Paranjape
MD, CEO & Executive Director

Yes. So on the MAT, absolutely correct. It is a one-time trade and that's it. On your second question, I think this is a constant thing that we've sort of been speaking this while. However, in discussions with the regulators, we have all come up with a framework now, which requires that upfront all members classify whether the underlying participant is what part of the value chain. So we define what part of the value chain you could be. And you need to sort of declare what your underlying client is. This bifurcation of clients is something that is going to be mandatory from the 1st of October. So from the Q3 of this year, you will be able to get these numbers straight off from our website. You don't even need to talk to us about it because they'll be publicly available. But till then, we are working with the market to get this bifurcation done, and you will be able to get this data from that start of quarter 3.

Operator

The next question is from the line of Srivathsan Ramachandran from Spark Capital.

S
Srivathsan Ramachandran

I just wanted to get some sense, are you seeing a good volume expansion over the last 6, 8 quarters? Wanted to get a sense if there is any difference between prop vis-Ă -vis client trades. The second thought, I was just looking at how that's played out with maybe a top 10, top 20 concentration kind of a number? Has there been any meaningful change? Or it's pretty much the same?

M
Mrugank Madhukar Paranjape
MD, CEO & Executive Director

So I think to your first question, the overall percentages haven't changed too much. We've seen as much growth in some of our top algo players as well as the growth in the retail market. And like I had mentioned at the beginning of the call, the healthy growth in the unique client codes as well as the healthy growth in the registered clients demonstrates that retail is growing at a fairly good pace as well. So from pure algo versus rest of it, no perceptible change. In terms of concentration, again, no very big change. But yes, the change in our average realization for the full year would give you some idea that we have our larger members are doing better than the smaller members. Because the average realization has gone from 2.22 to 2.17 in the full year.

S
Srivathsan Ramachandran

Sure. Sure. I just have one more question. Just wanted to get your thoughts. You had a great 3-year stint, is there anything that you thought you could have completed during this stint, but you have not completed? I just wanted to get your thoughts.

M
Mrugank Madhukar Paranjape
MD, CEO & Executive Director

So again, I think a lot of things that we started off together and what happened under the aegis of SEBI are almost all done. As I look back, there isn't too much that I would say is not done. Yes, I would have loved to see some of the approvals that we are getting now. If they had come a bit earlier, then we could have probably onboarded some of our mutual fund clients, we could have probably started trading on index. But honestly speaking, I think, for a market that has just started developing under SEBI in the last 3 years, we've made great progress. So I don't think there's anything on that count, which I would say is not done or undone.

Operator

The next question is from the line of Rahil Jasani from ICICI Securities.

R
Rahil Jasani
Research Analyst

Sir, just one question. Last quarter, SEBI declared a few brokers not fit and proper for commodity derivatives. So they said that they shall cease to act as commodity brokers. Does that impact us? I mean, it wasn't seen in this quarter's numbers. But does that impact us in any way?

M
Mrugank Madhukar Paranjape
MD, CEO & Executive Director

So one, I think, the members that you mentioned were not active at all and they had ceased their operations. So that does not impact us. It didn't impact us this quarter and should not impact us going forward as well.

R
Rahil Jasani
Research Analyst

And that is -- is that because of the unification of their broker license into one single entity?

M
Mrugank Madhukar Paranjape
MD, CEO & Executive Director

Yes. So I think most of them have already started their business in another entity or moved their business or taken some call in terms of how they will migrate to other entities.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] The next question is from the line of Viraj Kacharia from Securities Investment Managers.

V
Viraj Kacharia
Senior Analyst

Just had two questions. One is on the tax part. So what is the sustainable tax rate we should look at going forward?

S
Sanjay Wadhwa
Chief Financial Officer

So Viraj, we still have some long-term capital losses, which are available for set off against long-term capital gains. So the rate for the next year also should continue to hover around 22-odd percent. That's where it will be for the next 2 years at least.

V
Viraj Kacharia
Senior Analyst

Okay. Understood. And there was a news of which was going on regarding your forensic audit -- auditors regarding the share of data of IGIDR. So anything you can comment on that?

M
Mrugank Madhukar Paranjape
MD, CEO & Executive Director

So we don't comment on regulatory matters, and there's nothing that's sort of really impacting and therefore, we won't be able to give any other information on that.

Operator

The next question is from the line of [ Arpit Ranka ] from [ Kobil Investments ].

U
Unknown Analyst

So one question from my end. What has been the attrition rate at the company level and at the senior management level over the last 3 fiscal years? If you could give the data, it will be useful.

M
Mrugank Madhukar Paranjape
MD, CEO & Executive Director

You're looking for attrition rate at senior management level?

U
Unknown Analyst

Maybe, yes. I mean the key management personnel level and also at the broader company level also.

M
Mrugank Madhukar Paranjape
MD, CEO & Executive Director

So I think both numbers are single digit. Both senior management as well as the full company, we are at single digit in terms of attrition numbers.

U
Unknown Analyst

And what has the trend been like over the last 3 years? Has it been sort of healthy or not so competitive?

M
Mrugank Madhukar Paranjape
MD, CEO & Executive Director

So like I said, last 3 years' trend is single digit, and which we believe is a very healthy number.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] The next question is from the line of Sujit Jain from ASK Investments.

S
Sujit Jain

Just wanted to check about product license fee increased by CME, when exactly did it happen? And in absolute terms what that number would be?

M
Mrugank Madhukar Paranjape
MD, CEO & Executive Director

So the product license fee increased from September. So you would have seen we had mentioned it even in our Q2 numbers call. And the total impact for this year was approximately INR 7 crores for that 7-month period. So full year impact would be approximately, maybe INR 10 crores, INR 12 crores there.

S
Sujit Jain

So meaning FY '20, it will be INR 10 crores, INR 12 crores impact?

M
Mrugank Madhukar Paranjape
MD, CEO & Executive Director

So FY '20, we are saying, as compared to last year, we'd probably end up spending another INR 4 crores to INR 5 crores, somewhere between that.

Operator

The next question is from the line of Amit Chandra from IDFC (sic) [ HDFC ] Securities.

A
Amit Chandra
IT Analyst

Sir, I just wanted to know, sir, as we have been focusing on the physical deliveries. So as of now, what is the percentage of the physical delivery? So earlier, it used to be around 1% to 2%. So has it increased considerably now?

M
Mrugank Madhukar Paranjape
MD, CEO & Executive Director

So I think the percentage of delivery remains the same. And I guess, as we have consistently maintained, percentage of delivery is a good number to track but a higher percentage doesn't necessarily indicate anything in relation to the health of the contract. We believe the threat of delivery is the most important aspect when you are looking at derivative contracts. But beyond that, that number is only a good number to track but a very big number is not necessarily any indication at all.

A
Amit Chandra
IT Analyst

As we are shifting towards physical delivery in some of our contracts in metals, so is it right now that the only 1% number is actually going to increase from here?

M
Mrugank Madhukar Paranjape
MD, CEO & Executive Director

So again, the 1% number that you're talking of is also not a generic number. The number varies by contract to contract. The percentage of deliveries in gold will be higher than the percentage of deliveries, say, in some of the other contracts we have. The percentage of deliveries in cotton will be extremely high as compared to those contracts. So in that sense, of course, since it was a cash-settled contract and sitting at a 0, yes, it will probably inch towards that 1% number. But again, 1% is something which we generally see being achieved over a very, very longer-time period once the contract has its maturity. So even internationally, the 1% to 2% that most of the larger exchanges have internationally is something which exists for very, very mature contracts.

A
Amit Chandra
IT Analyst

Okay. And sir, the -- in terms of the ADT for, like, bullion, we have seen a recovery in the last 2 quarters. So is it only because of the increase in volatility? Or do the return of the members who were earlier trading and who actually stopped trading after the demon impact, so what is driving the growth here?

M
Mrugank Madhukar Paranjape
MD, CEO & Executive Director

So I think we believe that inherently, there are 2 or 3 factors, which is helping us in the bullion market. One, of course, is that volatility is slightly better, which obviously helps us when it comes to the bullion market. Second, again, you're correct that members or underlying participants who may have reduced their volumes or gone away during the post demonetization period have now started coming back on to this platform. And I think the other part is, of course, the fact that we continue with our fairly aggressive push in terms of getting more physical participants onboarded. So that's contributing as well to this deepening of the market.

A
Amit Chandra
IT Analyst

So the earlier rate for the bullion was INR 9,000 crores to INR 10,000 crores of volumes. So do we expect that to return to these levels?

M
Mrugank Madhukar Paranjape
MD, CEO & Executive Director

Again, as you must be knowing, we consistently don't give a product-level outlook in terms of ADT because it's something which is extremely difficult to predict. But yes, as an exchange, we have the belief that the INR 9,800 crores peak, which we had pre-demonetization is an achievable number. It should happen over the next 12 to 18 months.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] The next question is from the line of Prashant Tiwari from SBICAP Securities.

P
Prashant Tiwari
Research Analyst

What is the -- have you thought about what would be the pricing that you would look out in options at this time?

M
Mrugank Madhukar Paranjape
MD, CEO & Executive Director

So Prashant, early, can't indicate, but I think there is a sort of market on the other side, which is the equities market, which gives you some sort of an idea of what the market can probably absorb in this product. So that could be a starting point but that's not necessarily where we'll end up.

P
Prashant Tiwari
Research Analyst

Yes. But will it be safe to think that it will be lower than INR 2 or lower than what we charge on futures?

M
Mrugank Madhukar Paranjape
MD, CEO & Executive Director

So -- okay. You need to compare it on a like-to-like basis. Obviously, if you're comparing it in terms of how much you charge on the absolute versus how much you charge on the notional and how much you charge versus. So what we charge in an options contract is based on the value of the premium. And therefore, if you compare that, then it won't be a comparable number. But -- so which is -- it's not an apple-to-apple comparison that you're looking at.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] As there are no further questions from the participants, I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Paranjape for closing comments.

M
Mrugank Madhukar Paranjape
MD, CEO & Executive Director

Thank you. And thanks, again. I must say it's been a phenomenally great year for MCX. Like I said at the beginning of the call, a lot of things that we started 3 years back when SEBI became our regulator are -- have taken flight, they've come to fruition. Almost everything that we've been doing is coming to a stage where it is maturing in execution. From a very personal perspective, I just want to thank all of you as a very supportive group of investors, shareholders who've been a party of -- to this journey, who've been supportive of MCX. And I'm very sure that you will remain as supportive as investors to MCX for my successor, Mr. P. S. Reddy, who will be joining shortly. Today at the Board meeting, we -- and I think we've already put out the release as well to the Bombay Stock Exchange. Mr. Reddy will be coming here over the next 8, 10 days to facilitate a very smooth handover to him. And he takes over formally from the 10th of May. So I'll -- we can do the call jointly for obvious reasons. I'm hoping that you all will give the same support and the same sort of rigor with which you've looked at MCX. So thank you for that, and have a great evening.

Operator

Thank you very much, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of Multi Commodity Exchange of India Limited, that concludes this conference call. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.