Max Financial Services

“So we are more confident that APE growth should look better in the second half than the first half.”

“So as the quarters progress, you should see persistency no longer deteriorate. In fact, on the contrary, improve with improvement kicking in quarter 3, quarter 4 on that particular, as the base of the problem product kind of keeps reducing.”

“our quarter 3, quarter 4, structurally, our margins improve as volume builds up. So you will see an expansion in margins, and it should only look better from where we are at the moment.”

“So even if some moderation, which may happen because of very high base of protection, the overall margin profiles, the confidence is more positive, and we should continue on this expansion journey that we have experienced so far.”

“As part of H2, we are quite confident of a healthy growth coming from Axis Bank.”

“And Sumit, due to the fact that under the new EoM framework, the incentives to consolidate with one single player increases.”

“So I think with the way the regulations are now being defined, whether it is any bank, I think in the short and the medium term, you will see them taking a call in terms of dealing with the fewer players.”

“Have we had that formal conversation either with Axis or any other bank? Answer is no, we have not.”

“Out of our overall sales, actually, Axis Bank contributes almost around 42-43% of the sales.”

“The economic value to the distributor on selling protection will remain fairly insulated even in the new era of protection business.”

“And also, there will be an opportunity which a transition always brings about. So we will capitalize it to the fullest potential.”

“And the good part of that lift was there was almost 80-85% incremental customers who were coming and buying.”

“But at a macro level, the journey for us, which is we are around 25% on Expenses of Management to GWP ratio, the 15% journey, I think with the mix of the commissions getting realigned towards renewal than first year as per what has been indicated and some cost actions over the next 2.5 years to be taken, we are confident that we will meet it.”

“But the core growth does remain at around 9-10% in our opex, which we have done to ensure the business momentum is sustained and built upon.”

“So it does fall down to in the range of 16.5% to 17.5% kind of level.”

“On the strain question, this has largely happened because of credit life business, which kind of causes and credit life plus the GST charge that has come in the first half, which was not there in the previous year for the first half.”

“On VNB margins, I think largely, it is happening because of mix and also the inherent margins improving within the products. The attribution to operating leverage is far lower.”

“So I think, Nidhesh, our capital solvency, you must have noticed, we are at 197%. We did raise around INR 686 crore of debt in the month of September.”

“Your observation is correct, annuity does consume less of capital.”

“So I think as the moment stands, no immediate lookout for capital. We seem to be comfortable with the position that we have.”

“But more importantly, we do have certain launches planned on annuities again, there is a refresh that we are thinking of in the fourth quarter.”

“There is some refresh on the products also being done from a protection business perspective.”

“The product has been well received and already contributes around 8% of our total APE.”

“During the quarter, we also relaunched the Smart Term Plan Plus with 8 flexible protection variants, life cover up to age 100 and enhanced women-centric benefits, including maternity cover and Lifetime Plus benefits.”

“In Q2, we launched Smart Retirement Income with Sustained Earnings Plan, popularly now called Smart RISE, which combines flexible lifelong income with a Nifty 50 linked variable annuity option, offering customers the potential to participate in the long-term market growth.”

“The non-operating variance stands negative at INR 216 crore, largely due to the movements in the interest rates, and this is transitory in nature.”

“When I optimistically look at the Excel sheet, along with the team and Amrit, I can very safely say that 95% of the business actually does not get impacted.”

“While the 13-month persistency is at 83% versus 85% last year, we continue to be ranked amongst the top players on NOP persistency across cohorts.”

“In our specific conversation with IRDAI, since you asked that question, I think some of the specific suggestions we made are also around group credit life (GCL) because GCL is around pure protection.”

“At the same time, the proposed EOM limits and commission caps represent a meaningful reset of industry business models, particularly coming on the back of several major regulatory changes over recent years.”

“the new agent and base advisers largely remain unaffected as the current payouts are already below the proposed limits.”

“And for the quarter 2, the VNB actually stood at 27%, and this is despite the GST impact.”

“So whenever FY28 numbers are provided, there will be a comparative period of FY27, which will be provided and 1st April '26 will be the transition date.”

“But, because IGAAP will be reported in parallel for two years, so you can effectively compute the EoM numbers for sure.”

“So no hard and fast ceiling that we have.”

“What we have also done is we have launched a full-scale transformation program, which we call Parivartan Plus.”