Managing Director’s Message

Dear Stakeholders,

I am pleased to present the Annual Report for FY24. The year has been extremely satisfying with significant growth in the Assets Under Management (AUM) in the mutual fund industry enabling the company’s improved performance. The industry AUM breached the ₹ 50 lakh crore mark for the first time which is about six-fold increase in a span of ten years. Continuing its value proposition, which is enabling the business growth of MF Industry, CAMS has been at the forefront extending its support for the growth in the industry during the year. It’s a privilege to share the key highlights of the year with you.

Financial Performance:

During FY24, the consolidated revenue from operations of the Company was at ₹ 1,13,652 lakh as against ₹ 97,183 lakh in the previous year which is an increase of 16.9% over the previous year. The Profit Before Tax was ₹ 46,685 lakh as against the previous year PBT of ₹ 38,019 lakh registering an increase of 23%. The Earnings Per Share was ₹ 72.06 as against the previous year which was at ₹ 58.26 per share. Dividend of 465% inclusive of final dividend to be approved by the shareholders was recommended during the year.

The Company’s mission statement – ‘Our Mission… Your Growth’ – mirrors its core value of serving customers, including investors, distributors, clients, employees, and every other stakeholder. This philosophy that drives our service efficiency has been receiving widespread appreciation from our customers.

Operational Excellence:

Mutual Funds

Mutual Fund Assets Under Management (AUM) grew by 37% YoY in FY24 for the industry, recording the highest gain since the fiscal year FY21. The number of folios closed at a record 17.78 crore, with the investor base of 4.46 crore. AuM for CAMS serviced funds has grown to ₹ 37.3 lakh crore at the end of FY24 and our share in the industry continues to be stable at around 68%. Our transaction volumes have grown significantly with an increase of 28% YoY to touch ~60 crore. We saw record high SIP registrations at 2.7 crore and ahead of industry growth in investor base at 3.2 crore.

Voice of Customer

The annual investor satisfaction survey conducted in February/March 2024, saw close to 37K respondents participating, with 97.6% of them rating our services as Very Satisfied / Satisfied. 96.82% have given positive advocacy score.

Our track record in winning new mandates from AMCs set to launch their Mutual Fund business further solidified during the year. We won all three open bids viz. Angel One, Torus Oro and Unifi Capital.

MFCentral, the platform offered by the company along with the competition is being adopted rapidly by fintech intermediaries for API-based services such as portfolio statements and digital Loan against MF. The platform is also gaining traction with investors because of its unique single-window facility to address all investors’ requirement across the entire Mutual Fund landscape in India.

Beyond Mutual Funds

The company continued to focus on expanding to new lines of business apart from Mutual Fund and made significant progress during the year as highlighted below:

AIF and PMS

CAMS continues to be the market leader in the Alternative Investment Fund (AIF) and Portfolio Management Services (PMS) space catering to 170+ fund houses (450+ schemes across investor servicing and fund accounting scope) with an overall AUA of over ₹ 2.20 lakh crore. Our clients include market leaders in the Alternative Investments space, and we have been able to make inroads with the leading international funds choosing us as their service provider for their AIF and PMS funds. CAMS WealthServ, our digital onboarding platform for the AIF/PMS industry, has also seen excellent traction with over 130 signups since launch. We have embarked on a set of ambitious initiatives including foray into multicurrency accounting, industry-first analytics platform WeathTrak, launch of fund administration services in GIFT City and enhancing our digital offerings suite to cement our position as a preferred full stack service partner for the alternatives industry. These initiatives complement our continued efforts to win new AIF and PMS clients for the core scope of investor servicing and fund accounting services.

CAMS KRA

CAMS KRA, predominantly serving the Mutual Funds serviced by CAMS as the KYC repository, expanded its offerings to serve the larger capital market segment of fast-growing fintech stockbrokers. KYC (Know Your Customer) which is integral to on-boarding new investors has been reimagined by CAMS KRA to launch the “10 Minute KYC” proposition which catapulted CAMS KRA’s volume by 3x. Both the fast-growing Fintech broking houses and Mutual Funds have augmented the CAMS KRA base to touch 1.8 crore investor base.

Account Aggregator (AA)

The Account Aggregator (AA) ecosystem continued its rapid growth in FY24. At the end of the financial year, the cumulative number of linked accounts reached approximately 58.26 million and the total count of successfully fulfilled consent requests surpassed 63.96 million. This rapid adoption signals a maturing ecosystem, further bolstered by the onboarding of 580 entities as Financial Information Providers (FIPs)/Financial Information Users (FIUs). Account Aggregator capitalised on this dynamic environment has secured significant client wins and increased its market share of customers successfully linked to AA ecosystem to 13.3%. CAMSfinserv +TSP combination has emerged as the preferred AA amongst Fintech capital market entities for F&O onboarding.

Insurance Repository:

The Insurance regulator - IRDAI released the Protection of Policyholder Regulation as well as Bima Sugam 2024 Regulation during the year. The regulator has mandated issuance of policies in electronic form. Regulations have included the definition of e-Insurance account (eIA) as an account for maintaining insurance policies in electronic form. This is expected to bring opportunities to CAMSREP – the wholly-owned subsidiary of the company to scale its repository operations. Insurer services continued its focus on improving productivity by gaining scale as well as cross utilisation of resources. It has articulated a clear strategy to establish its IR business, through the Reimagine project. On one hand, it is adding more and more insurers on to IR, in particular non-life insurers and on the other hand it is developing the integrated services platform Bima Central to transform policy holder experience.

CAMSPAY

The Payment Aggregator business (CAMSPAY) received the final authorisation from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to operate as a Payment Aggregator (PA). It marks a major step forward in our commitment to providing a secure, reliable, and compliant payment platform. In March 2024, the business achieved a milestone by successfully processing more than 1.4 million mandate executions in a single day and crossed 1 million monthly registration via UPI AutoPay. UPI AutoPay registration volume notably increased by 25X compared to FY23. Enhancements have been made to UPI AutoPay, enabling it with instant authentication capabilities, increased scalability, and improved efficiency in handling transaction volumes. Authentication such as Reverse Penny Drop & Penniless IMPS-based auth services were launched. The business also launched special projects to win back investors in the Mutual Fund segment by introducing Payment Links and conversion to iSIP for quicker registrations.

Central Record Keeping Agency Services:

The CRA business of the company continued to scale up its operations. The total subscriber count as of March 31, 2024 stands at 67,736. CAMS eNPS continues to be at # 2 position. The business is targeting 100k Subscribers in FY25 and is integrating with leading PFMs (PoP business) and Fintechs for creating new markets.

Acquisitions

The companies acquired in the last two years Fintuple and Think Analytics have been winning several new mandates and extensively worked on strengthening its relationship with large clients. The synergies of these new subsidiaries with the company’s business are being utilised to enhance the business proposition.

Technology & Cyber Security

Our technology prowess has been foundationally led by digital solutions, API stack, intelligent automation and state-of-the-art infrastructure to deliver the twin benefits of delivery excellence and enabling clients’ business growth. This is reflected in the seamless processing of the exponential volumes resulting in negligible customer complaints and several first to market solutions that have improved customer journeys, reduced risk and enhanced customer experience.

Continuous steps are being taken to enhance the Bit Sight Cybersecurity posture score which is a key indicator for cyber security robustness. The score continued to be around 800. Significant measures are being taken to fix the issues reported on multiple applications to reach the targeted milestone of 820 on the scale. Continuous monitoring solution (SAFE) has the security hardening configurations across all the enterprise IT assets. The current SAFE score is stable at 4.72 which is one of the best scores in the industry.

Focus on ESG and CSR

CAMS continued to focus on the areas of Education and Health care across the country as part of its CSR activities. It also continued its efforts towards the environment conservation. The fintech Innovation Lab set up in collaboration with Indian Institute of Madras last year was formally inaugurated after completion of interior works during the year. A design thinking approach to decide on the value proposition framework for CIFIL has been adopted. The purpose of CIFIL is to apply scientific knowledge to the problems in finance to create “FinTech” (Financial Technology). The projects underway include KYC through Blockchain, Fraud Prevention, Mapping Unclaimed Money & Risk Assessment Framework for Insurance. These projects are likely to benefit the industry at large and enable the regulators to achieve their intended goals.

Continuous monitoring solution (SAFE) has the security hardening configurations across all the enterprise IT assets. The current SAFE score is stable at 4.72 which is one of the best scores in the industry

Outlook

With the Mutual Fund industry showing very positive signs as seen by the healthy inflows, an all-time high level of AUMs, healthy SIP flows from disciplined retail investors and a vibrant stock market, the company is expected to retain its growth in the RTA business. The growth in the other businesses like Alternatives investment funds, Industry-wide KRA operations, Payment aggregator and the increased focus on insurance repository and Account Aggregator areas are expected to significantly enhance the revenues and profitability of the company. The company’s focussed transformation from a Capital Market centric player to a complete financial market’s player will also enable it to diversify its portfolio. The markets recognition of the differentiating factors of the company include Leadership depth, Superior technology, first to industry innovations and Demonstrated Thought leadership will accelerate growth of its business.

In Conclusion

I thank all the stakeholders for the continued support and trust in the Company. I am grateful for the contribution and guidance provided by the Board to take the company to greater heights. CAMS has also benefited from the guidance and responsive support of all the financial market Regulators, for which I am thankful.

I remain confident of our ability to serve our clients and remain as their growth enablers and continue to create impact for them.