Computer Age Management Services, or CAMS, the technology-driven financial infrastructure and services provider to mutual funds and other financial institutions, is the largest registrar and transfer agent of mutual funds in India. Its CEO Anuj Kumar recounts the recent digital initiatives of the company.

Mehul Dani: What are the milestones that CAMS achieved in the last FY?

Anuj Kumar: There was an all-round increase in average assets under management, or AAuM, transactions and investor folios that we serviced in FY2020 when compared to the previous year. AAuM serviced by us increased from Rs15.8 trillion to Rs18 trillion, mutual fund transaction volume grew from 312 million to 328 million and investor folios went up from 63.5 million to 71.7 million. In CAMS Insurance Repository Services, the number of e-insurance policies we held increased from 2.1 million to 2.8 million. Our myCAMS mobile app has 3.2 million registered users.

What are the major IT and digital initiatives?

Our proprietary platforms are built to absorb growth in the number of investors, assets, and trading volumes. From handling over 98 million transactions in the FY2015, we touched 328 million transactions in the last FY. We believe that our competitive technology advantage stems from the capability, functionality, integration, and scalability of our platforms, which deliver breadth and quality of service and cost efficiencies. Our continuing investment in these platforms continues to strengthen our competitive advantage by further increasing operating leverage, driving ongoing innovation, anticipating industry developments, and delivering increased efficiencies.

Any new tech-enabled offerings?

We offer many of our services online and through our mobile device applications for investors, clients, distributors, and channel providers. We have developed in-house and own Investrak.NET, a mutual funder agency platform, myCAMS, a mobile device investor interface application, GoCORP, a distributor focused application, and MFDEx a market intelligence product/information database, among many other services.

What is the size of your IT team?

Our IT team comprises 606 qualified professionals as of 30 June 2020, who manages a comprehensive proprietary IT infrastructure, develop innovative products, and ensure systems and data security, in addition to offering 24×7 support to our clients.

How are you ensuring cybersecurity?

CAMS has implemented cybersecurity and cyber resilience policy and established a technology committee comprising eminent specialists from IIT Bombay and IIT Madras, as well as the banking industry. The committee meets quarterly and reviews the robustness and resilience of our systems and processes. The minutes of the committee are submitted to our Board, and actions taken by us pursuant to such reports are submitted to SEBI. Examples of initiatives taken by us to improve our processes and systems include limiting one email address per investor account, implementing a DNS utility to prevent virus attacks, establishing direct real-time data backup, among others.

Last year, we showed up as one of the best in the country in the financial service sector on the BitSight score. BitSight is a monitoring agency, a global company which gives an outside-in view of a company’s cybersecurity posture. This year we have improved our score to 800.

Any recent additions to your product and service range?

We have been focused on adding services for our existing mutual fund clients relating to servicing of investors, interface with investors, distributors, and other stakeholders, risk management, process automation, data analytics, and business intelligence in order to grow and maintain our share of business and revenues from our mutual fund clients. For example, our anti-money laundering service, which detects, investigates, and reports suspicious transactions, is separately provided and additionally chargeable. We also recently launched edge360, a tool for distributors to enable the tracking of fees for transactions and the ability to view, track, and manage portfolios of investors.

How do you propose to enhance your market share?

Our present market share is approximately 70%, based on mutual fund AAuM managed by our clients and serviced by us during July 2020, according to CRISIL Report. We had a market share of 39% in the insurance repository business, based on e-insurance policies being managed, during the financial year 2018. Further, we are focused on increasing our mutual fund client base by attracting new mutual funds being launched in India as our clients. We believe our market-leading position and our strengths adequately position us to increase the number of our mutual fund clients.