Nucleus Software Exports Limited (BOM:531209)
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Q4 21/22

May 18, 2022

Speaker 11

This is the earnings conference call for the quarter and year ended on March 31, 2022. For discussion, we have here from the management Mr. Vishnu R. Dusad, our Managing Director, Mr. Parag Bhise, CEO, Mr. Anurag Mantri, CFO and Executive Director, Ms. Ritika Dusad, Executive Director and Chief Innovation Officer, Mr. Ashwani Arora, Senior Vice President, Global Customer Success Team, Mr. Sanjeev Kulshreshtha, Senior Vice President, Product Build, Ms. Prema Rajaraman, Chief People Officer, Mr. Ashish Khanna, Business Head, Financial Inclusion, Mr. Tapan Jaiswal, colleague from the finance team. As you all are aware, Nucleus Software does not provide any specific revenue or earnings guidance. Anything which is said during this call which may reflect our outlook for the future or which may be construed as a forward-looking statement must be reviewed in conjunction with the rest of the company filings.

An audio and transcript of this call will be shortly available on the investor section of our website, www.nucleussoftware.com. With this, we are now ready to begin with the opening comments on the performance of our company for the quarter and year ended March 31, 2022. Post that, we would be available for this question answer session. With this, I now pass over to Vishnu, sir. Over to you, sir.

Vishnu R. Dusad
Managing Director, Nucleus Software Exports

Thanks, Swati. Thanks a lot, warm welcome to all of you for this investor call ending Q4 and financial year ending thirty-first March 2022. It was one of those toughest years when despite the huge disturbances in the environment, we continued building our strength. It is an indication that is visible in the numbers that you have seen in this quarter. We do hope that we'll continue to leverage our strengths of creating credibility in the marketplace through sincere work and continue to provide comfort to our customers and all other stakeholders for years to come. With those words, I would now like to hand over to Parag Bhise, our CEO.

Parag Bhise
CEO, Nucleus Software Exports

Thank you very much, Vishnu, and good afternoon, everyone, and thank you very much for joining this call once again. As Vishnu said, and thanks to the efforts put in by the leadership team and the entire Nucleus team, we've seen a good quarter from financial perspective. Some of the initiatives that we have been taking in the past looks like starting to give us results. We continue to groom our fresh hires on our products. You'd remember we've been talking about hiring 400+ freshers from campuses. Many of them have become part of our active workforce while other batches are still under training. We continue to groom them on our products so that they become more and more productive.

We have talked about significant improvements in the past. We this year have advanced our annual improvement cycle by three months to respond to market conditions. We just finished this exercise a couple of weeks back. We, however, continue to face challenges on attrition front. That has not passed us despite a few very significant improvements that we have given. We are otherwise getting good traction from the market. We have started working from office in hybrid mode. Some of us are visiting daily, some three days a week, and rest still working from home.

We also started visiting our customers and have started to maintain a face-to-face connection with them, which is giving us a perspective that they value our partnership, the service that we provide to them. Overall a positive feeling from the market. That's about it from my side. Thank you.

Speaker 11

Now I request Tapan Jaiswal, sir, to put some light on financial numbers.

Tapan Jaiswal
Finance Team, Nucleus Software Exports

Yes, sure. Good afternoon, everyone. Key highlights from financials are our consolidated revenue for the quarter is at INR 153 crore against INR 121.6 crore quarter-on-quarter and INR 124.2 crore year-on-year. For the year, it is INR 497.2 crore against INR 513.5 crore for the previous year. Overall revenue in foreign currency, including Indian rupee revenues, $20.6 million for the quarter against $16.3 million quarter-on-quarter and $16.9 million year-on-year. For the year, it is $67.1 million against $69.6 million for the previous year.

Product revenue for the quarter is at INR 129.6 crore against INR 99 crore quarter-on-quarter and INR 105 crore year-on-year. For the year, it is INR 411.7 crore against INR 430.2 crore for the previous year. Revenue from projects and services for the quarter is at INR 23.5 crore against INR 22.6 crore quarter-on-quarter and INR 19.2 crore year-on-year. For the year, it is INR 85.5 crore against INR 83.4 crore for the previous year. As for expenses, cost of revenue, including cost of product development for the quarter is 71.2% of revenue against 79.5% of revenue quarter-on-quarter and 63.6% of revenue year-on-year.

In absolute terms, this is INR 108.9 crore against INR 96.7 crore quarter-on-quarter and INR 79 crore year-on-year. For the year, it is INR 386.7 crore, which is 77.8% of revenue against INR 332.7 crore, which is 64.8% of revenue for the previous year. Marketing and sales expenses for the quarter is 3.5% of revenue against 3.8% of revenue quarter-on-quarter and 3.7% year-on-year. In absolute terms, this is INR 5.4 crore against INR 4.6 crore quarter-on-quarter and INR 4.6 crore year-on-year. For the year, they are at INR 20.2 crores against 15.5 crores for the previous year.

G&A expenses for the quarter is 9.2% of revenue against 12.3% of revenue quarter-on-quarter and 7.3% year-on-year. In absolute terms, this is INR 14 crore against 14.9 crore quarter-on-quarter and INR 9.1 crore year-on-year. For the year, they are at INR 54.1 crore against 37.1 crore for the previous year. EBITDA for the quarter is at INR 24.7 crore against 5.4 crore quarter-on-quarter and INR 31.5 crore year-on-year. For the year, EBITDA is at INR 36.2 crore against 128.1 crore in the previous year. Other income from investments and deposits are INR 5.7 crore against 7.1 crore quarter-on-quarter and INR 6.7 crore year-on-year.

Total other income for the quarter is INR 6.4 crore against INR 8 crore quarter-on-quarter and INR 7.2 crore year-on-year. For the year, other income from investments and deposits is at INR 29.9 crore against INR 34.3 crore for the previous year. Total other income for the year is at INR 34.7 crore against INR 39.6 crore for the previous year. Total taxes are at INR 7.7 crore against INR 1.4 crore quarter-on-quarter and INR 8.2 crore year-on-year. For the year, taxes are at INR 14.6 crore against INR 35.9 crore in the previous year. Net profit is at INR 18.3 crore for the quarter against INR 8 crore quarter-on-quarter and INR 27.4 crore year-on-year.

For the year, it is INR 40.9 crore against INR 117.9 crore in the previous year. Other comprehensive income is at -INR 5.7 crore for the quarter against -INR 0.4 crore quarter-on-quarter and -INR 1.5 crore year-on-year. For the year, it is at -INR 10.8 crore against +INR 1.9 crore in the previous year. Total comprehensive income, which includes net profit and other comprehensive income, is at INR 12.6 crore for the quarter against INR 7.6 crore quarter-on-quarter and INR 25.9 crore year-on-year. For the year, it is at INR 30.1 crore against INR 119.9 crore in the previous year.

EPS for the quarter is at INR 6.67 as against INR 2.77 in the previous quarter and INR 9.42 in March 31, 2021 quarter. For the year, it is at INR 14.28 against INR 40.62 in the previous year. In terms of foreign currency hedges on March 31, 2022, we had $3.45 million forward contract at an average rate of 76.88. There is a mark to market gain of INR 11.01 lakhs, which is taken to hedge reserves in the balance sheet. Revenue contribution from top five clients for the quarter is 29% against 23% in the previous quarter.

The order book position is INR 562.1 crore, including INR 515.3 crore of product business and INR 46.8 crore projects and services business. In December thirty-first, two thousand and twenty-one, the order book position was INR 563.8 crore, including 541.4 crore of product business and INR 22.4 crore of projects and services business. Total cash and cash equivalent as on March thirty-first, two thousand and twenty-two are INR 542.9 crore against INR 543.3 crore as on December thirty-first, two thousand and twenty-one. This includes balances in current accounts of INR 35.8 crore, various schemes of mutual fund, INR 395.3 crore, fixed deposits of INR 30.1 crore, investments in tax-free bonds of INR 76.7 crore, INR 5 crore in preference shares.

With regards to accruals, we are at INR 83.2 crore against 18.9, 89.2 crore previous year. During the quarter, there is a gross addition of fixed assets of INR 2.9 crore, consisting primarily of INR 2.6 crore on computers, INR 0.23 crore on vehicle, 0.08 crore on software, and INR 0.01 crore on office equipment. Now I will hand it over to Swati.

Speaker 11

Thank you, sir. With this, we are now open for the question answer session. I will now hand over to Abhi. Over to you, Abhi.

Abhishek Pallav
VP of Engineering, Nucleus Software Exports

Thank you, Swati. Participants, with this, we will open the floor for Q&A interactive session. If you wish to ask a question, please press zero and then one on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. I'll repeat. To ask a question, please press zero and then one. I'll repeat. Participants, if you wish to ask a question, please press zero and then one. We have a question from Samarth Singh from TTS Capital. Samarth, your line is unmuted. Please go ahead.

Samarth Singh
Analyst, TTS Capital

Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity. Please could you, I know you hinted a little bit about the attrition rates still being high and pressure on our employee costs. Could you put that in context with, you know, with the news that we're hearing now that, you know, there's been a slight slowdown in terms of layoffs starting in the U.S. with tech companies there, and will there be some sort of follow on from that, you know, in our employee costs as well?

Parag Bhise
CEO, Nucleus Software Exports

Yeah. Thanks for raising this important question. The situation continues to be extremely volatile with both kinds of news coming in. You get to hear the news about the layoffs, and you also get to hear news about you know some of the big players increasing the salaries substantially. We must say that we are at a loss at this juncture, and we're keeping a very close eye. We're trying to optimize things as much as we can. That's about it that we can say with some clarity.

Samarth Singh
Analyst, TTS Capital

Sir, I'm not sure if you mentioned, what was our attrition rate in quarter four, and how did that compare to the quarter three?

Parag Bhise
CEO, Nucleus Software Exports

It was slightly better. 36% was our attrition rate, annualized, and then, it was better than our earlier annual rate. Earlier quarterly attrition rate.

Samarth Singh
Analyst, TTS Capital

36% was for quarter four?

Parag Bhise
CEO, Nucleus Software Exports

Yeah. Annualized.

Samarth Singh
Analyst, TTS Capital

Okay. Okay. Annualized, not the quarter.

Parag Bhise
CEO, Nucleus Software Exports

It is for the quarter, 9%.

Samarth Singh
Analyst, TTS Capital

Yeah. Okay. For the quarter, it's 9%. Okay. Okay.

Parag Bhise
CEO, Nucleus Software Exports

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Samarth Singh
Analyst, TTS Capital

Could you know, talk about, you know, where we are in terms of given our escalated costs in terms of passing some of that cost on to our clients?

Parag Bhise
CEO, Nucleus Software Exports

Okay. Rather than passing on the cost, we have looked at it from an overall perspective and we are definitely looking at pricing as a significant area to be worked upon. We have started working on it. At the moment I would say that we have tested success with couple of our clients, but we plan to do it with more clients. Just to clarify, we're not taking it as an initiative to pass the cost to the customers, but looking at how our products are valued in the market. It's kind of. Even internally, it's an exercise in assessing the value that we are delivering to

Speaker 11

Yeah. Sorry for that interruption. There was a false fire alarm in the building.

Samarth Singh
Analyst, TTS Capital

No, I'm just trying to look at, you know, in 2015, 2016, I believe we spent a significant amount of money in, you know, launching FinnOne Neo. The assumption was that it would be a top-notch product and a product like that would allow us to get the correct pricing in the market. You know, if I'm just looking through the geo, you know, the profitability per region. I think besides India, there's no other region that's currently, you know, profitable. I mean, can you just help me explain. I'm not being able to understand why we are not being able to get the correct pricing for our product, so that we can, you know, earn a normal return.

Parag Bhise
CEO, Nucleus Software Exports

Okay. I would say that, okay, the FinnOne Neo product so far, largely the traction is from India market. That's what we explained. We have installations outside, but they are not in such large numbers. So that's why you don't see that effect. The other part of our business, which is revenues around products from earlier products as well as services, that definitely has taken a hit because of the attrition that we have faced.

Samarth Singh
Analyst, TTS Capital

What do you mean to say is, as far as FinnOne Neo is concerned, we are getting the correct pricing in the market. It's only our older products where we are not being able to sort of pass on our elevated costs.

Parag Bhise
CEO, Nucleus Software Exports

Yes, that is true. Even for our older products, we're not limiting our pricing exercise to only FinnOne Neo. We are going back to older customers also for revisions.

Samarth Singh
Analyst, TTS Capital

Okay. Thank you. Welcome back.

Abhishek Pallav
VP of Engineering, Nucleus Software Exports

Next we have Vaibhav Barjatia from Honesty and Integrity Investment. Your line is unmuted.

Vaibhav Barjatia
Analyst, Honesty and Integrity Investments

Yeah. Thanks for inviting us. Again on the pricing.

Parag Bhise
CEO, Nucleus Software Exports

Your voice is a little low.

Vaibhav Barjatia
Analyst, Honesty and Integrity Investments

Can you hear me? Can you hear me now?

Parag Bhise
CEO, Nucleus Software Exports

Yeah, it's a little better.

Vaibhav Barjatia
Analyst, Honesty and Integrity Investments

On the order book, if I kind of, you know, relate your earlier comments on pricing to the order book. The pricing changes does not indicate that, you know, on the existing orders we have any kind of price revision because our order book is mostly flat. When you say that to some of the customers we have secured price revision, just wanted to understand why it has not been seen reflected in the order book.

Parag Bhise
CEO, Nucleus Software Exports

Yeah. I think as we have just talked about just couple of customers, that is the reason it is not visible in the order book. We do hope that by next quarter and next-to-next quarter it will start becoming visible in the order book also.

Vaibhav Barjatia
Analyst, Honesty and Integrity Investments

Got it. Lastly, on the revenue for this quarter, we have seen quite a significant jump. Can you explain if there is kind of one-off or large order execution which has made that the revenue milestone or what has kind of suddenly resulted in jump in the revenue for this quarter?

Parag Bhise
CEO, Nucleus Software Exports

All right. As we mentioned, it is a combination of slightly better pricing that we've got from a couple of our customers. Then, yeah, execution of some of the projects also. The regular execution of some of the projects. It is also the reflection of some of our old standing projects which we completed.

Vaibhav Barjatia
Analyst, Honesty and Integrity Investments

Okay.

Parag Bhise
CEO, Nucleus Software Exports

Yeah.

Vaibhav Barjatia
Analyst, Honesty and Integrity Investments

lastly, the number of employees as on thirty-first March. I think total number of employees.

Parag Bhise
CEO, Nucleus Software Exports

Satyan, you have the numbers? Hello?

Vaibhav Barjatia
Analyst, Honesty and Integrity Investments

Yeah.

Parag Bhise
CEO, Nucleus Software Exports

Question is, how many employees were there on 31 March 2022, is it?

Vaibhav Barjatia
Analyst, Honesty and Integrity Investments

Yes.

Parag Bhise
CEO, Nucleus Software Exports

O ne thousand eight hundred twenty-nine.

Vaibhav Barjatia
Analyst, Honesty and Integrity Investments

What was there in 2021? March 2021.

Parag Bhise
CEO, Nucleus Software Exports

It was 1932.

Vaibhav Barjatia
Analyst, Honesty and Integrity Investments

Okay. Okay, that's it from my side. Thank you.

Parag Bhise
CEO, Nucleus Software Exports

Thank you.

Vaibhav Barjatia
Analyst, Honesty and Integrity Investments

Thank you.

Abhishek Pallav
VP of Engineering, Nucleus Software Exports

I repeat, participants, if you still have any questions, please press zero and then one on your telephone keypad. We have a question from Samarth again from TTS Capital. Samarth, your line is unmuted.

Samarth Singh
Analyst, TTS Capital

Can I ask you a follow-up? In the two geographies of Far East and that we have as Far East and Southeast Asia, we've, it's been loss-making for us for the quarter as well as for the year. Can you just talk about. I think the revenues have also dropped there. What is happening in those two geographies?

Parag Bhise
CEO, Nucleus Software Exports

Satya, you wanna take this?

Vaibhav Barjatia
Analyst, Honesty and Integrity Investments

I'll take that, Anurag. Yeah. The major impact had been because of the increase in the personnel cost as we have already updated with the compact. However, while we were having some of the challenges in the bandwidth, the good part is that the customer confidence is quite intact. In these two geographies the integration has also opened up. As the customer confidence is intact, we are expecting new projects to come up. With the open integration we will be able to quickly deliver those projects as well to increase the revenue back to the initial level. That's why in this quarter and the next quarter, we are seeing an increase. We are expecting an increase and the current trend will be reversed.

For almost one year both these geographies.

Samarth Singh
Analyst, TTS Capital

So.

Vaibhav Barjatia
Analyst, Honesty and Integrity Investments

Pardon?

Samarth Singh
Analyst, TTS Capital

No, please go ahead.

Surya Prakash Kanodia
CFO, Nucleus Software Exports

For one and a half years, both these geographies were completely controlled and closed from the immigration perspective. Earlier we had the projects or rather the engagements at hand which we could not deliver or rather there were deferred plans to deliver the same thing. Now, as I mentioned, with the opening immigration, we will not be having any issues in executing these programs which are in hand for us and which are anticipated in coming months. That's why the trend is expected to be reversed.

Samarth Singh
Analyst, TTS Capital

Okay. In terms of marketing, what are our, you know, our main focus geographies as of today?

Vishnu R. Dusad
Managing Director, Nucleus Software Exports

We will continue to focus on our existing geographies for the time being. We have initiated our, you know, market research in let's say Europe for the time being. We're getting some queries from North America also, so we may initiate some research there as well.

Samarth Singh
Analyst, TTS Capital

We have spent some significant marketing dollars in Australia. There is some barrier again as well. Could you talk about. I mean, at some point of time we had gained a lot of traction and then, you know, it doesn't seem to be converting into revenues at this point.

Vishnu R. Dusad
Managing Director, Nucleus Software Exports

Glad to let you know that our second implementation in Australia has technically gone live and soon they'll be business live also. We expect that the third customer also goes live in the next quarter. With these three customers being live in Australia, we hope to gain next level of traction in that market.

Samarth Singh
Analyst, TTS Capital

So.

Surya Prakash Kanodia
CFO, Nucleus Software Exports

Sorry, just wanted to add to what Vishnu said. Australia is also a region which was completely closed for one and a half years. Here they are also now opening up. With travel starting, both in terms of customer engagements as well as delivery capability, I think what you are referring to that we should see a positive impact on the revenue numbers in the coming months.

Samarth Singh
Analyst, TTS Capital

Revenue for quarter at least from Australia is basically sort of AMC revenue. Is that understanding correct?

Vishnu R. Dusad
Managing Director, Nucleus Software Exports

Yeah. As of now, you know, because of the travel, et cetera, the implementations have slowed down a bit. One of our customers is going through a merger.

Samarth Singh
Analyst, TTS Capital

O kay. One of the three out of the three customers, one of them is emerging?

Vishnu R. Dusad
Managing Director, Nucleus Software Exports

Yeah, yeah.

Samarth Singh
Analyst, TTS Capital

Okay. The merger will be with one of our other customers or just, you know.

Vishnu R. Dusad
Managing Director, Nucleus Software Exports

No. Yeah.

Samarth Singh
Analyst, TTS Capital

Is there a possibility of us to get that business as well of the merged entity?

Vishnu R. Dusad
Managing Director, Nucleus Software Exports

We are certainly looking forward to that.

Samarth Singh
Analyst, TTS Capital

Okay. Third, you could just, you know, talk a little bit about, you know, Neo Cloud, how that is shaping up and, you know, at what point do you expect to get to, you know, some sort of substantial revenue where we will break that out in the financials?

Vishnu R. Dusad
Managing Director, Nucleus Software Exports

Sanjeev Kulshreshtha, you want to take the cloud question?

Vaibhav Barjatia
Analyst, Honesty and Integrity Investments

Definitely. Yeah. The second customer we just referred about going live in Australia, where the business will be operational towards this content is on cloud only. In addition to that, in the Far East we have gone for multiple cloud technologies implementation for some of our leading customers. From both products and services side, we are expecting a significant upside in the cloud line of business in the coming quarters.

Samarth Singh
Analyst, TTS Capital

Okay. Anything in India?

Vaibhav Barjatia
Analyst, Honesty and Integrity Investments

Definitely. India had been our strong customer base, and the focus will be in India as well. In addition to that, the traditional markets, we will be also focusing on cloud. India goes by default and traditional markets as well.

Samarth Singh
Analyst, TTS Capital

And there was.

Vishnu R. Dusad
Managing Director, Nucleus Software Exports

Additionally, in India there is an interest from some of our bigger customers also to go on cloud.

Samarth Singh
Analyst, TTS Capital

Okay. These are the banks or the NBFCs?

Vishnu R. Dusad
Managing Director, Nucleus Software Exports

Both, I would say.

Samarth Singh
Analyst, TTS Capital

You know, historically we had, of course, launch of FinnOne Neo. We were targeting largely new customers and, I think besides HDFC Bank, you know, all the other banks were sticking to our older product. Has that changed now and is there significant opportunity?

Vishnu R. Dusad
Managing Director, Nucleus Software Exports

Yes, it certainly is changing now. It is certainly changing. Yeah.

Samarth Singh
Analyst, TTS Capital

Okay. Is there like any way to sort of define the scope, what sort of opportunity is there in terms of moving our old customers to FinnOne Neo?

Parag Bhise
CEO, Nucleus Software Exports

Yeah. In fact, I would like to say that most if not all they would want to move to FinnOne Neo because the ultra-rich functionality that our product, our new product brings over and above the rich functionality that FinnOne itself has with 467 APIs. It gives crazy amount of flexibility to our customers to integrate with the rest of the, you know, ecosystem around. This is on top of very rich, you know, functionality, flexibility that has been built into FinnOne Neo. This is in our almost 35 years of experience in retail lending understanding the retail lending business.

Samarth Singh
Analyst, TTS Capital

Right. I'm just wondering in terms of, the opportunity, you know, if you could tell the number of, your clients that are currently on the old platform that would possibly move, to FinnOne Neo over the next, couple of years.

Parag Bhise
CEO, Nucleus Software Exports

Yeah, it could be 50+.

Samarth Singh
Analyst, TTS Capital

Okay. How many clients are there in India in total on, you know, on the FinnOne and FinnOne Neo platform?

Parag Bhise
CEO, Nucleus Software Exports

We may not be able to share that number.

Samarth Singh
Analyst, TTS Capital

Okay. That's it from my side. Thank you.

Parag Bhise
CEO, Nucleus Software Exports

Thank you. Thank you.

Abhishek Pallav
VP of Engineering, Nucleus Software Exports

Next we have Vivek Ganguly from Nine Rivers Capital. Vivek, your line is unmuted.

Vivek Ganguly
Director of Investments, Nine Rivers Capital

Thank you for the opportunity. You all had a you know very good quarter at about INR 1.50 crores of revenue given the challenges that you'll have faced in the past. My question is divided in two parts. One is going forward can we expect this INR 1.50 crore of revenue per quarter kind of to become the base quarter on which you all will grow? Second is you know you all are at this $65-$70 million range and you all have been there for in that range for quite some time. Aspirationally and also from the perspective of you know the market that you all are can address what is possibly you know the revenue or targets that you all have for the company over the next five-year time frame?

What are the threats to those? If you can shed some light on both these things, it'll be very helpful.

Parag Bhise
CEO, Nucleus Software Exports

Okay. Firstly, I'll start from the last part. As Swati mentioned in the beginning, we don't give any projections. Okay, but now I'll come to the first part of your question. Yes, we had a very good quarter financially. That is thanks to some of to the efforts that all of us made, some initiatives that we took. However, as I mentioned, it's not that the challenges are over. They continue to be there, primarily the acquisition challenges that continue to be there. Very difficult to put it. Of course, the kind of I talked about, the substantial increase in our personnel costs because of two successive heavy increments that we have. There is

Of course, we have to. I would say there is no choice but to grow at a faster pace. In the situation, the market dynamics are so dynamic, it is difficult to predict. In any case, we don't give predictions. Definitely, from an aspirations point of view, as we are talking in response to last query, it's part of our plans to move as many customers from FinnOne to FinnOne Neo as possible at a faster pace. We are working on migration toolkits so that those migrations become very smooth. A lot of our product focus is now to create that enhanced migration toolkit to such a level that those migrations. We're working on those lines. Apart from the functionality, how those migrations become.

That is going to be one very significant drive that I would say in this year and the years to come. Definitely aspirations is there, but where we'll head is difficult to say. We're taking it quarter by quarter.

Vivek Ganguly
Director of Investments, Nine Rivers Capital

Thank you.

Abhishek Pallav
VP of Engineering, Nucleus Software Exports

We have a question from Vaibhav Barjatia from Honesty and Integrity Investments again. Your line is unmuted, Vaibhav.

Vaibhav Barjatia
Analyst, Honesty and Integrity Investments

Yeah. Thanks for adding the follow-up. On the employee cost, which is -INR 111 crores that we have. Is there any one-time bonus included there or all is like, you know, regular normal bonus, is there? I just wanted to understand if there is a kind of one-time cost that is there currently in the current quarter.

Parag Bhise
CEO, Nucleus Software Exports

No. It is not one time. These are regular increments.

Vaibhav Barjatia
Analyst, Honesty and Integrity Investments

Okay.

Parag Bhise
CEO, Nucleus Software Exports

I'll just repeat what I said in my initial remarks, that we have advanced our increments by three months. The increments are done.

Vaibhav Barjatia
Analyst, Honesty and Integrity Investments

Right.

Parag Bhise
CEO, Nucleus Software Exports

As of January. That's why

Vaibhav Barjatia
Analyst, Honesty and Integrity Investments

Right.

Parag Bhise
CEO, Nucleus Software Exports

The impact has come in this time.

Vaibhav Barjatia
Analyst, Honesty and Integrity Investments

Yes.

Parag Bhise
CEO, Nucleus Software Exports

Okay. Yeah, yeah. The, yeah, that I heard. Yeah, that's it, Prakash. Yeah. Thank you.

Abhishek Pallav
VP of Engineering, Nucleus Software Exports

I'll repeat. Participants, if you still have any questions, please press zero and then one. Once again, to ask a question, you need to press zero and then one. We have a question from Dipesh Lakhani from Dolat Capital. Dipesh, your line is unmuted.

Dipesh Lakhani
Analyst, Dolat Capital

Hello.

Parag Bhise
CEO, Nucleus Software Exports

Hello.

Dipesh Lakhani
Analyst, Dolat Capital

How could we pull out such a large growth in this quarter? Does this include large new license wins in this quarter? Also, what is the outlook for near future? Do we have more pent-up demand that can be serviced as our execution was weak in the last previous quarters?

Parag Bhise
CEO, Nucleus Software Exports

Yeah. As I think, Vishnu sir has responded earlier that it's a combination of multiple things that gave us this impact in the last quarter. That there's not one thing. A combination of pricing and completion of some of the projects which were long going on. That's one part. Projections, again, repeating that, we cannot give. Yes, as I mentioned, again, in my initial comments that there is definitely a lot of traction from the market. Almost all our customers have some things that we can do for them. A lot of things that we can do for them. That's whatever we can deliver. It's limited by that.

As I said, the 400+ freshers that we have had, we are continuously working on getting them productive at the fastest pace. Many of them have already become part of the workforce, and the rest, we are trying how soon we can get them onboarded so that they start to deliver what our customers are expecting. Traction point of view, there's no dearth.

Dipesh Lakhani
Analyst, Dolat Capital

Okay. Secondly, actually I missed it. What is the current attrition now for Q4?

Parag Bhise
CEO, Nucleus Software Exports

9%. The last quarter was 9%.

Dipesh Lakhani
Analyst, Dolat Capital

Okay. Expected attrition in the coming quarters?

Parag Bhise
CEO, Nucleus Software Exports

It's highly unpredictable because the market is still very dynamic.

Dipesh Lakhani
Analyst, Dolat Capital

Okay. Thank you so much.

Parag Bhise
CEO, Nucleus Software Exports

Thank you. Thank you.

Abhishek Pallav
VP of Engineering, Nucleus Software Exports

We have a question from Vivek Ganguly again from Nine Rivers Capital. Your line is unmuted, Vivek.

Vivek Ganguly
Director of Investments, Nine Rivers Capital

Yeah. Thank you. I have two questions. One is, in this, the year ended, what has been the spend attributable to sales and marketing, and how do you expect that to grow going forward? The second one is, you know, which are the large consultants, like IBM, Accenture that you're, you have in your ecosystem or also your, you know, sales from implementation technology partners? Thank you.

Parag Bhise
CEO, Nucleus Software Exports

Yeah. Attempting to answer your first question. I think we are going to increase our marketing expense substantially this year, essentially, to ensure that the positioning we deserve is there in the minds of our existing and prospective customers.

Vivek Ganguly
Director of Investments, Nine Rivers Capital

What was the spend in this year?

Parag Bhise
CEO, Nucleus Software Exports

It is around INR 5 crores.

Vivek Ganguly
Director of Investments, Nine Rivers Capital

Okay. Thank you. About, you know, the large technology partners that you are working?

Parag Bhise
CEO, Nucleus Software Exports

Yeah. We have initiated some efforts in that direction. We do hope that during this current financial year, we'll be able to get going with at least one partner.

Vivek Ganguly
Director of Investments, Nine Rivers Capital

Okay. Thank you.

Parag Bhise
CEO, Nucleus Software Exports

Okay. Thank you.

Abhishek Pallav
VP of Engineering, Nucleus Software Exports

Next is Rahul Jain from Dolat Capital. Rahul, your line is unmuted.

Rahul Jain
Director of Research, Dolat Capital

Yeah. Hi. Congratulations to the management for a very strong execution. Just wanted to understand. I'm sure this question has been asked in various form and is difficult to give any outlook. What I essentially want to understand is that there has been some disruption that we saw because of headcount issue and some aberration because of the ransomware incidents a year back. Now, I'm sure on the ransomware side, we are completely out of that situation. Even on the attrition side, things are relatively better. Two, three, your inputs on two, three things will be very, very helpful. First, how we were able to get such a huge revenue in this quarter from a QOQ point of view.

Is it like there was some culmination of milestone on the implementation side, which we were not able to execute and we're able to build in this quarter? That is point number one. Secondly, are there significant traction coming from the point of view of overall demand in this quarter as well as in upcoming thing? Because you said the environment looks very, very good. Thirdly, from a pure attrition point of view, we are already halfway in this quarter in Q1. Have you seen any moderation versus what you were seeing in Q4?

Parag Bhise
CEO, Nucleus Software Exports

It's kind of a repeat. Yeah, I agree. The champion revenue is a combination, as we said a couple of times earlier, combination of pricing and, yes, combination of some ongoing projects, some milestones being achieved, definitely. Traction, very strong traction from the market. I said earlier, almost all our customers are wanting us to do a lot of things, so there's no doubt of any demand. Your third point was about.

Rahul Jain
Director of Research, Dolat Capital

Attrition, being halfway in this quarter, has it eased down versus March or that quarter?

Parag Bhise
CEO, Nucleus Software Exports

Marginally, I would say. Very marginally. The only thing I can say is once we've done that, increment in advance, we will hope that it is better, but you can't say.

Rahul Jain
Director of Research, Dolat Capital

also, on the macro side of the thing, you think that, given the situation that has played out during COVID and now, a few quarters after, kind of COVID situation, banks and NBFCs are incrementally looking towards the modernization of the core system and lending application. Or you think this is general positive, but there's no structural that you could read out of this situation?

Parag Bhise
CEO, Nucleus Software Exports

Clearly, you know, all the banks, or most of them at least, and NBFCs also, they want to leverage on digitalization as much as they can. You know, for example, some of the banks now want to call themselves Fintechs with a banking license. It has gone to that extent. This is not a case with just one bank. Most of them want to leverage technology in a very major way. The kind of, you know, leveraging that we have done in our FinOne Neo product and then FinnAxia product, leveraging of technology, technological advances, they are open to explore this possibility at the earliest, at least some of them.

Rahul Jain
Director of Research, Dolat Capital

Right. Just last one from my side. Related to these two products that you said, firstly, on the FinnOne Neo side, you were also mentioning a bit in terms of how the transition is happening, where you're asking clients to convert from the FinnOne to FinnOne Neo. What are the kind of upside that we are seeing? If you can give one or two cases where what were the AMC recurring revenue that we were having versus when they migrate to FinnOne Neo, what kind of upside we can see in that account?

Parag Bhise
CEO, Nucleus Software Exports

Obviously we will not be able to give you any specific numbers, but we can generically tell you that, you know, because the Neo functionality is far more advanced, the pricing is also, you know, similar.

Rahul Jain
Director of Research, Dolat Capital

Sorry, I could not capture it. What I'm trying to ask in case my question was not clear is assuming there was a customer which were paying 100 INR as an AMC being using our FinnOne services for, let's say, last 10 years. Now he intends to move to a much better solution, which is FinnOne Neo. What could be the potential revenue stream from this customer over the next few years, assuming he moves to a cloud version of it?

Parag Bhise
CEO, Nucleus Software Exports

All right. Your question was very clear and the way I responded and is what I'll repeat is, we would not be able to give you that number except for the fact that the functionality that we have on FinnOne Neo is many times more.

Rahul Jain
Director of Research, Dolat Capital

Right.

Parag Bhise
CEO, Nucleus Software Exports

That's the only answer we would be able to give.

Rahul Jain
Director of Research, Dolat Capital

Okay. Essentially, sir, what you're saying is that because it is a far more feature-rich and powerful solution, it will give enough reason for customer to migrate from the older version to this version. Of course, there could be some upside from revenues, but difficult to quantify or share with us. Okay. Lastly, from the FinnAxia perspective, we used to earlier very specifically announce some of the deal win related to product-specific success. We used to see FinnAxia also featuring in the IBS ranking. Unfortunately, we were not able to see wins coming from this product in that league table. Not even in the press releases that you publish for the shareholder.

Just trying to understand what has been the traction in the last three years in this particular solution?

Vishnu R. Dusad
Managing Director, Nucleus Software Exports

Last two years, you know, the COVID years, we had minimal addition of new logos. All our existing customers are very happy with what they are able to put to use to service their customers. Now that COVID is behind us, hopefully, we propose to, you know, get active on talking to our prospective customers. We hope to come back to you with some news.

Rahul Jain
Director of Research, Dolat Capital

Right. Lastly, sorry for extending my question. Just one thing on the AMC side. Any ballpark estimate you could give that on the total revenue base, what could be coming from AMC component?

Vishnu R. Dusad
Managing Director, Nucleus Software Exports

No, unfortunately, we do not give those breakups. We'll have to. We'll be continuing with the same policy of.

Rahul Jain
Director of Research, Dolat Capital

Maybe if you could share the total number of active customers who are paying AMC.

Vishnu R. Dusad
Managing Director, Nucleus Software Exports

No, we may not be able to share that either.

Rahul Jain
Director of Research, Dolat Capital

Okay. Thank you. I'll fall back in the queue.

Vishnu R. Dusad
Managing Director, Nucleus Software Exports

Thank you.

Abhishek Pallav
VP of Engineering, Nucleus Software Exports

At this time, there are no further questions from participants. I would like to now hand over the floor back to Swati for final remarks. Over to you, Swati.

Speaker 11

Thanks, Srishti. Now, we would like to thank all the investors for joining us today for this call. I will now pass it over to Vishnu R. Dusad, sir for his closing comments. Over to you, sir.

Vishnu R. Dusad
Managing Director, Nucleus Software Exports

Thanks, Swati. Would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you for your keen interest in Nucleus Software. We take this opportunity to reiterate our commitment to add value to all our stakeholders in years and decades to come. Thank you.

Abhishek Pallav
VP of Engineering, Nucleus Software Exports

Thank you so much, sir. Thank you all the speakers, and thank you all the investors for joining the call. Let this conclude our investor call for today. You may all disconnect now. Thank you, and have a pleasant evening.

Vishnu R. Dusad
Managing Director, Nucleus Software Exports

Thank you all.

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