Namaskar. I'm Vinod Agarwala, Chairman of this 22nd annual general meeting of IRIS Business Services Limited. Many shareholders are present, and I welcome them all to the meeting. The pandemic continues to rage across India and rest of the world, causing us to effect many changes in our lives, many of which are probably reflective of new normal. The fact that we are holding this virtual AGM online is one such. It is hosted on infrastructure provided by NSDL in compliance with the Companies Act, 2013 read with many circulars issued by Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Government of India. Mr. Santosh Sharma, Company Secretary, informed me that requisite quorum is present. Let us start proceedings of the meeting. I welcome other directors on the board of your company to this 22nd annual general meeting. Please allow me to introduce them to you.
Firstly, Mr. Bhaswar Mukherjee, who retired a few years ago as Director of Finance of the PSU Navratna Hindustan Petroleum Corporation, is Chairman of the Audit Committee and Stakeholder Relationship Committee of your company. His contribution to ensuring that your company continues to maintain the highest standard of corporate governance with IRIS cannot be overstated. Mr. Bhaswar Mukherjee.
Namaskar. I am Bhaswar Mukherjee, an independent director in the board of your company, joining the AGM today from Navi Mumbai. Thank you.
Thank you, Bhaswar. What makes a company great is financial and commercial success it has to show. This comes from how strong the sales organization is. Mr. Ashok Venkatramani is a veteran marketer who has served companies like Hindustan Unilever, ABP Network, and Zee Media Corporation in leadership positions. He is the Chairman of Nomination and Remuneration Committee and Corporate Social Responsibility Committee of your company. Mr. Ashok.
Good morning, everyone. I'm Ashok Venkatramani, an Independent Director on the board of IRIS Business Services. I'm joining this AGM from my office in Mumbai today.
Thank you, Ashok. Over the past year, the company's board has been greatly strengthened with the induction of Dr. Haseeb Drabu, a former Chairman of J&K Bank and former Finance Minister of Jammu and Kashmir. Dr. Drabu is well-known economist not only just in India but the world over. His contribution as a member of GST Council is well-known to all. With a keen ability to anticipate the future, he chairs the Committee of Risk of your company. Dr. Drabu. I think there's some technical problem. He's not able to introduce himself. I now invite promoter directors to introduce themselves.
Good morning. This is Haseeb Drabu joining from Srinagar. I'm an independent non-executive director on your company. Thanks for being here. Thank you.
I now invite promoter directors to introduce themselves.
You are muted, Deepta.
Ma'am, please unmute yourself.
How do you do it?
My apologies. Good morning, everyone. I'm Deepta Rangarajan, Full-Time Director of IRIS. I'm joining this AGM from Chennai today.
Good morning, dear shareholders. I'm Balachandran, Full-Time Director and CFO of IRIS. I'm joining this AGM from the company's registered office in Vashi, Navi Mumbai today. Thank you.
Good morning. My name is Swaminathan, the CEO of the company. I'm sorry for the latency in the images coming up, because in the conference room there seems to be a 10-second to 15-second delay, for the image to come up on your screen. Please bear with us. We are sorting this out. I'm joining the AGM from my office, from our office, from your office in Mumbai. Thank you.
Okay. As I already said, I am Vinod Agarwala. I am lawyer by profession. Now, apart from other directors, we have Mr. Santosh Sharma, Company Secretary, and several members of leadership team joining from their respective locations. Representative of statutory auditors, KKC & Associates LLP, and secretarial auditor, Parikh & Associates too are present. The notice convening this meeting has been, and the board report has already been emailed to all shareholders and will be taken as read. The statutory auditors, KKC & Associates and secretarial auditor, Parikh & Associates, have both expressed unqualified opinion in their respective audit reports for the financial year 2021-2022. There are no qualification observations or adverse comments on financial statement and matters which have any material bearing on functioning of the company.
The statutory auditor's report on standalone financial statement and consolidated financial statement are available on page number 113 and 118 of the annual report. Secretarial auditor report is enclosed in Annexure 7 to the board report at page number 83 of the annual report. Corporate governance report is enclosed as an Annexure 8 to the Board's report on page number 88 of the annual report. To transact the business as mentioned in the notice, the members were provided with an opportunity to inspect all documents referred to in the notice and explain with a statement by writing to the company on its email ID till the date of AGM. I believe that all people would have taken help of this thing. The instruction for joining the AGM are provided in notice of AGM under note 21.
link for joining the AGM has been provided to all the members by the company secretary. We have received requests from members to speak at the AGM today. We will call out their names when the time comes. I request the speakers to introduce themselves and be brief and to the point. Members can also raise their hand by clicking on the Raise Hand option on the Zoom platform who have not yet given their name. The management will answer all questions received before the close of proceedings today. As you can appreciate, this is an innovation by the company to enhance the quality of shareholder participation during this virtual AGM. I urge members to please take advantage of it. I would further like to inform you that today's meeting is streaming live on the company's YouTube channel, IRIS Business Services Limited.
Pursuant to provisions of Companies Act 2013 and SEBI Listing Regulations, the company has provided facilities for voting by electronic means to all members to enable them to cast their votes electronically so that business may be transacted through such e-voting. For this purpose, the company has tied up with e-voting system of National Securities Depository Limited for eliciting voting through electronic means. The company provided remote e-voting facilities to all persons who are members on Friday, August 19, 2022, being the cut-off date for voting on all five resolutions set out in the notice to AGM. Members attending the AGM today who have not cast their vote by remote e-voting are entitled to exercise their right to vote by e-voting. T TJ Sheth & Associates, company secretaries, has been appointed by the board as a scrutinizer for e-voting at this AGM.
The result of voting will be declared in due course after considering the e-voting done today by members participating in this AGM and the remote e-voting already done by certain members. The results, along with the scrutinizer report, shall be submitted to stock exchange, that is BSE and NSE, and will also be placed on the website of the company as the meeting concludes today. The resolutions have already been put to vote through remote e-voting and requirement to propose and second is not relevant. The performance of company is included in directors' report and management discussions and analysis. Now allow me to say something to you shareholders. It seems that in this post-pandemic world, the virtual AGM has become the new normal.
For a company with large number of shareholders spread all over the country and some even overseas, the virtual AGM offers great way for more shareholders to engage with the company than in-person AGM would allow. Today, your company has over 3,500 shareholders, and by holding this AGM through this virtual platform, every one of them, spread over more than 150 locations, has an opportunity to participate. To each one of you who has joined this meeting today, thank you for taking the time. Thank you for making the effort. We value importance of face-to-face interaction with our shareholders, too. I am happy to announce that starting this year, our company will host a shareholders week to coincide with the World Investor Week observed globally from October 3- 9, 2022, an initiative of the International Organization of Securities Commissions.
It is a week-long global campaign to raise awareness about the importance of the investors' education and protection. I invite you to join in person or virtually. We will share details shortly. COVID refuses to go away. Though looking at what most businesses are doing or how people are behaving, one would think that life is back to normal and that COVID is history. Fact, though, is that it is not so. Today, I want to dwell on the importance of organizations and how it may have changed the workplace forever. Most of the organizations have made adjustments in this post-COVID world, including IRIS. In this post-COVID world, employees are beginning to define the terms of their engagement with the employers. Today at IRIS, we are reimagining HR because it is not just about the work from home, it is work from anywhere.
It is work on my terms, the employee's terms. You may have also seen the statement attributed to Google CEO, Mr. Sundar Pichai, that Google has too many employees who do not work effectively or with focus. He's reported to have said that Google's productivity isn't where it needs to be. You may have also seen the tweet of Wipro's Rishad Premji, who has drawn attention to the increasing cases of moonlighting by industry staff. He calls this cheating. At Apple, a revolt seems to be brewing against three days in the office directive, with employees urging management to leave such decision to their line managers. Post-COVID, employees' behavior has changed, and not all for the better. From the statement of Pichai and Mr. Premji, one could conclude that many employees use freedom to work from anywhere as license to do what they please.
Here at IRIS, many of our colleagues are simply reluctant to return to office, and understandably so. During the pandemic, many of them had moved to their respective native places with their families. Their reluctance to return to Vashi is understandable. As a consequence, on any given day, less than 20% of the office is occupied. I do not think we will enforce mandatory attendance in office so long as the work is getting done and the managers are satisfied with the work of their subordinate. For this to work, we propose continuously train our managers to get better at monitoring the work from home of those who seek the flexibility to work at time of their choosing.
In this work at any time world, an employee can take a break in the afternoon to watch a serial on TV or catch matinee or run an errand. Traditionally, in most companies, the metric used by HR to monitor employees was to keep track of hours they spent in the office. This is obviously no longer meaningful. The timesheet culture has to give way to monitoring if the expected outcome have been delivered. With the concept of work hour becoming redundant, we need to revisit the concept of leisure, vacation and work-related perks. In labor force dispersed, we are figuring out how to keep employees engaged. We are also asking ourselves fundamental questions about work-life balance in flexitime world. The old eight-hour rule won't work any longer. Here at IRIS, we have always tried to be ahead of the curve.
If employee can work from anywhere at any time of their choice, and we have the system to manage them, it gives us confidence to recruit from anywhere. In the battle for talent, the world now becomes our catchment area. Where we recruit from will change. When we recruit will change. How we will recruit will change. We will recruit more women, especially stay-at-home mothers. A work from home, work at your convenience framework is a situation made for educated stay-at-home mothers. According to a research study published by prestigious The Atlantic magazine, in USA, where opportunities abound, as much as 43% of women with children leave their job. A World Bank study says that between 2010 and 2020, the number of working women in India dropped from 26% to 19%.
Following COVID, economists in Mumbai estimate that female employment plummeted to 9% by 2022, says a Bloomberg report. We will recruit outside the big towns and cities. What COVID has done is to force large part of the workforce to try and stay close to home, where they may have support system. Many of our own staff have gone back to towns or even to villages they hailed from. By building a referral system to spot talent by offering such talent Mumbai-like compensation, no matter where they may be, we will be able to significantly improve the quality of technology talent at IRIS. Bear in mind that your company does not need to recruit large number of like the big IT services firm. We have confidence in our approach. Let me turn to year that has gone by, during which much has happened.
I want to draw your attention to few of them. Tomorrow evening, I am happy to say, your company will receive an award from Union Finance Minister Srimati Nirmala Sitharaman, recognizing IRIS as India's best Fintech instituted by Financial Express. This award take notes of the work we have done for Reserve Bank of India, which has helped transform the Indian banking system, rendering it, as former ICICI Bank Chairman K. V. Kamath says, "The strongest in 50 years." I wish to place on record your company's gratitude to RBI and the various officials of RBI who interacted with us over the years for the opportunity to serve the country in this manner. The award ceremony will be streamed live on the website of Financial Express.
Your company made a new beginning in November last year when IRIS migrated from SME platform to the main board of BSE, while getting listed on NSE as well. From having just under 400 shareholders when on SME board, your company now has over 3,500 shareholders after the minimum trading lot condition of 4,000 shares was removed. More than half of our shareholders own less than 100 shares each, with as many as 200 of them owning just 1 share each. Earlier this year, we received one of our first major public recognition when we were awarded the silver medal in the category of tax technology providers. As you are aware, your company is a hugely respected provider of GST compliance software.
Further recognition came a couple of months later, this time from GSTN itself, when we became one of the four partners authorized to generate e-invoices. Your company has gone for the brand refresh, which may have caught your attention as well. We are wearing new colors. We have also come up with a tagline which captures the purpose of your company. All these years we used to describe IRIS as the place where information meets technology. Now, with as many regulatory implementations as we do, we are building transparency and driving growth. It captures the mission of the company. It captures succinctly what we do. As I conclude, I wish to express our profound gratitude to each of our clients who support us with their business, helping us grow. I thank our incredible partners from different parts of the world who are working with us for our mutual benefit.
The last word must go to Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, who passed away recently. He is reported to have said, "Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has a genius, power and magic in it." He also said in a different context, "You do not succeed without obsession." The entrepreneurs who founded this company started their journey obsessed with their dream to make this world better place by getting people to use data better. I thank you five for partnering us on this journey. Now, I hand over to Balachandran Krishnan, the Whole Time Director and CFO, who would speak about the performance of the company during the year. Over to you, Balu.
Thank you very much, Vinodji. Good morning once again to all, shareholders. I introduce you a very quick operational review update, and there's a short slide deck as well. Santosh, is it possible to collect the slide deck? Abhijeet, can you just allow me to share the screen? Will NSDL please allow screen sharing? Hello? Okay. Sorry for a small delay. Now we have the slide deck on display. I hope all of you can see it. Let me go to the next slide. The one after this. One more. Okay. Here's a quick background about the company. I'm sure all of you know IRIS well enough, but still a small description of what we do.
Your company operates in the RegTech segment, and that too primarily, with products in the software as a service space. Within this, our footprint is global, and we cater to regulators and enterprises. We report our numbers through business segments which are called Collect, Create, and Consume respectively. Collect segment caters regulators. While the Create segment is about offering solutions to enterprises who need to interact with regulators. In the Consume segment, which is nascent at this point of time, we do have a couple of interesting products in the making as well. Now to the next slide, please. Okay, here is a quick look at our presence in multiple countries. About 45% of revenues come from India, while the rest is distributed across all these countries that you see on the slide. Next slide. Okay.
Now let me take a quick look at the company's financial performance for the year 2021-2022. This year was not an easy one for the company with headwinds had been still, you know, still coming from the COVID pandemic, which hampered us to an extent, especially on revenues from our regulator-oriented business. Still overall revenues grew at about 8% while expenses went up at a higher rate, partly due to employee expense increases. With the result that there was some impact on the EBITDA and net profit levels. Next slide, please. On the other hand, revenue mix improved, you know, significantly with the Create segment putting in a solid performance, growing by nearly 26%.
Recurring revenues is a very important, metric and now contribute as much as 78% to the total, up from 71% in the previous year. The annual recurring revenues is another important metric, also has moved up, and it sits at about INR 48.5 crores as of June end, as of June 2022 end. Next slide, please. If you take a quick look at the key ratios, you'll find that, the profitability has been impacted, but, the interesting thing is our working capital management has improved with debtors, the number of days coming down to 86%, from 97%. Next one, please. Now, this is the final slide. This is all about our first quarter results, which was announced on August 12th.
Typically, you would have seen that the first half of our performance in the past has been a little more subdued compared to the second half. Having said that, you know, in this first quarter, we have posted a 30% growth in top line compared to the corresponding period. Expenses also grew at a relatively low pace still, you know, fairly substantial, but a lower rate compared to revenues, with a substantial jump at the EBITDA. From business perspective, I should say that we do see some pickup activities on the RFP side with respect to regulators which augur well for the company. That's it from my side. Quick update, as I mentioned. Thank you. Over to the chairman.
I now request Mr. Swaminathan to introduce the senior management team to the members. Meanwhile, thank you, Balu, for presenting.
Thank you. I think I'll come to the senior management a little later. I just wanna say a couple of things I think are very important. I think the last year has been huge in terms of what I call vindication. When we receive an award tomorrow from government finance minister, it's the culmination. It's not the end. I don't use the word culmination as an end. It's a culmination of a journey that we started many years ago with a lot of self-belief or what our creativity wall called obsession, that what we do will change the world. I think it goes back to what Gandhi said, "Find purpose, means will follow." We have been obsessed about the use of data standards like we are going to change the world.
It shows in the way the Indian banking system has become so strong today. Today we touch a large number of people across the country, every individual, every household in the country with a bank account. Because ultimately, if the banks in the country are safe, or as Mr. Kamath says, "The banks are the safest they've been in 50 years," I think we should be happy about it. This would not have happened without the support of RBI, so we owe them a huge debt of gratitude, which Vinod Agarwala mentioned. Which is why as we turn over a new leaf, as we go from strength to strength, we also decided to go in for a significant amount of rebranding.
We basically said, "Let's look at the company afresh and look at wearing new clothes." You know, when you come out of illness, what the first thing we do is wash up and go wear new clothes. We got ourselves new clothes. What I will do is, I'm gonna request Gautam, our colleague who runs the GST business, to share with us the thought that went into the rebranding. After Gautam, I will request Ashok, who was also involved in providing inputs on the rebranding side and who's a veteran marketer, to offer his comments on the whole rebranding exercise. Gautam, you wanna go first, set the framework for it, and then Ashok can offer comments. Gautam, over to you. There's a bit of latency in this whole thing, so please bear with us. If you too got a 10-second latency.
Gautam, I don't know, perhaps you stay until you come up on screen. Can you please get yourself on screen? I don't know whether you're on mute. I can't even see you. There's no video. While Gautam comes, Ashok, maybe you want to take a stab at this thing. You were helping us a lot. You helped us greatly in terms of the whole rebranding exercise. Can you please. By the way, Abhijeet, I've just been told Gautam's not on the panelist list. Can you please make Gautam a panelist? In the meanwhile, Ashok, can you please share your inputs on the rebranding exercise, please. Ashok, you're on mute.
Can you hear me now? Yeah.
Oh, thank you.
Thank you so much, Swami. I think I had the good fortune of being involved with the team on
We had the good fortune, so thank you.
Okay. I think I would qualify the change of clothes analogy which you gave in saying that it's not just change of clothes to convey a new purpose. I think what was said by Vinod ji in his speech, and which was also reiterated in all that the marketing team has put together, is that when they go back to their customers, it's not just a set of new look on the brand, but also a new sense of purpose on what the company endeavors to do, and more importantly, how the company endeavors to add value to their customers going forward.
To me, somewhere linking the company's own purpose to ensuring that they deliver what the customer wants. I think that linkage has got strengthened, and to my mind, that is, I think the key aspect of this change. I think the success of this whole change, to my mind, will be in really reflected when we go actually out into the market and start talking to the customers about the new change and what we try to do and what we will try to reiterate in our endeavor to bring value to our customers. To me, that the implementation of this whole change is really the key.
I'm really looking forward to continued engagement with the team in making sure that we not just look new, but also are able to communicate to the customers the value which we bring to them in a more enhanced manner. Swami?
Thank you, Ashok. In fact, when our earliest tagline used to be, "Where information meets technology," which can mean pretty much anything in the world. You know, you can have bees moving around in Brownian motion to create honey, and even there this would be applied. I think focusing directly on the business itself, because our entire business is about creating software for transparency, for regulatory compliance, which in turn drives growth. I think the sharper messaging that's come with your support, with the support of various teams that are actually involved in it. Until Gautam comes. Gautam, are you Gautam?
Yes, I'm here, Swami. Can you hear me? I have actually logged on.
We can't see you.
Okay.
Yes, much better. Gautam, share with us the thought that went into the branding, please.
Sure. I think, you know, continuing from what Mr. Ashok said. It was time for us to look at refreshing our 25-year-old brand, and, you know, we needed to build something which is more contemporary and in line with what we do and what we value, in line with the changing times. We actually, we're not just looking at changing our brand, changing the color, but something which should be a reflection of what we truly value and, you know, what actually drives us to do what we actually build.
The journey was actually, you know, curated in partnership with a leading brand consulting firm, which actually looks at, you know, building brands from the perspective of innovation as well as growth. It was, you know, brand-driven growth exercise, and it involved actually, you know, talking to stakeholders, both external as well as internal. External stakeholders we spoke to, a lot of our customers, partners, and even consultants who have actually worked with us in the past and present, ex-employees. Internally, we spoke with a lot of employees, a lot of people who, you know, who work with IRIS, actually, what does IRIS mean? What are we doing right? What are we not doing right?
How can we do? This all culminated, you know, in actually coming down to, you know, like peeling onions, onion slice. What was that one key underlying theme which defines what we do? Everything, you know, came down to, you know, building trust and transparency and how this trust and transparency. What we do is, you know, using open standards like XBRL. We build RegTech SaaS products. That's all the what and the how part of it. The why is all about, you know, we all dream about a, you know, transparent tomorrow, and that's what is the common underlying theme of IRIS. That's what's reflecting now in our tagline, which is building transparency.
Transparency is something which will lead to growth of our customers, of our partners. Their growth is actually eventually leading to, you know, the growth of IRIS. From a brand color and look and feel perspective, we wanted to ensure that the legacy 25-year-old brand which, you know, which had built an identity and brought IRIS to where it is today, that familiarity was retained. At the same time, you know, retaining that crosshair, which actually is an indication of the sharp focus that we have. The eye is an indication of a human figure, which is.
Which you know, gives that human touch, reliability and care and support, which is a very you know, integral part of IRIS's DNA. The colors are green and blue. Blue symbolizes technology. Green is a color which symbolizes growth. It's also the color of our planet. We are looking at you know, more environment-friendly initiative. We're looking at getting into ESG. The blend of green and blue is actually marrying technology as well as growth and you know, which is actually radiating out outwards. That's what you know the new brand IRIS stands for human touch with technology and growth.
Gautam, thank you. In fact, the most satisfying part of this whole exercise was I was not involved in it. I completely love what happened finally. I love the final outcome. The reason why that is satisfying part, my not getting involved in it, is because this is literally the collective input from the colleagues and the collective input from the clients that we actually work with. It's not. Well, Gita was involved in it. The exercise was largely led by Gita and Gautam. More Gautam than Gita, in one way. I say more even than one. Gautam was perfectly involved in it, but I think it shows a company coming of age, where there are people in the next level and the level after that who are able to enunciate, articulate what the company stands for.
I think between Deepta and Ashok Venkatramani, we played a facilitating role. They played a facilitating role. I think for me, it's a huge source of confidence that there are people within the company who make things happen. I think it will be a huge source of confidence for our shareholders, as well for you, the owners of the company. Gautam, thank you, and to everybody who was involved in planning it sides, thank you very, very much. Most grateful to you. The second person that I want to introduce you to is my colleague, Shilpa. You might have met Shilpa in the past.
If you don't see Shilpa, so you're like, "It's Gautam there in the same room." One of the big victories for us in the last one year is the vindication of our work in the GST front as a tax technology provider. It's one thing to get an award, for which we are grateful to PRI who gave the award. It was a jury headed by Supreme Court Chief Justice Justice Lahoti. It's one of those really awards of great pedigree. Subsequently, we managed to capture the imagination of GSTN, who have decided to give us four partners to become their e-invoice registration portal. People will have to do a lot. You know what the language is, you know? When new things happen, new language comes up.
I think Shilpa can probably help us with the new language. Shilpa, the question is, what is significant about us becoming an IRP? What does this mean for the company?
Invoice registration portal, that is the IRP. Just like we, you know, mentioned briefly about it so that I can, you know, explain the significance of it. IRP is a registry which has been appointed by the government. What it means is every business who is covered under this mandate, they need to send their invoice first to this registry. The registry is going to verify the invoice, validate the invoice, and then stamp the invoice with a unique number. Only then the business can forward this invoice to the customer. A new step of validation by an independent authority, that is the registry, will be now effective for the businesses in India. The way India has approached e-invoicing is they're going in a phased manner.
In 2020, it started for larger companies with turnover above INR 500 crore. From 1st of October this year, it has. This threshold has come down to INR 10 crore. What it means is, every company who is going to get covered under the e-invoice mandate will send to IRP and then get, then it becomes a valid invoice. When we see the way things are moving here, as the threshold keeps on lowering, it is a larger market. The SME market that is getting, you know, more digitalized in the whole operations. They're all invoicing or any data that they're generating is now becoming standard and a digitally available format. With IRIS becoming an IRP, what-
with IRIS becoming an IRP, all the SMEs, the larger market that is up out there, we are going to help them digitalize their operation, which in turn for them it is going to help because the other opportunities of cash, credit and commerce will open up. We also know that ONDC is also making a big way here. Because of these allied opportunities around it, the core thing that is the data here becomes very important. Being an IRP, I think we will be having MSMEs who are registered with us, all the data will be there with us and from there the opportunities around the data, the allied opportunities is where we will be seeing growth happening.
Of course, MSMEs being one of the major contributors to the GDP, we helping them is overall going to help the economy is what we feel.
Shilpa, the question that shareholders keep asking me is-
Mm-hmm.
The generation of e-invoice is free. You have to give it for free to users of it. How will you make money? If you're gonna give it for free to companies to generate e-invoice, and MSMEs are not necessarily people who can pay a lot of money, how are you gonna make money on this?
There are two overall parts to it, if I can say. One is the compliance part of it, that is you just send the invoice and get an e-invoice generated. That is something it will be given for free by all the IRPs. The allied opportunity which I was just talking about. Now when we are saying about say a credit opportunity, the minute you have an invoice available in digital format, bill discounting or invoice discounting or getting funded for the supply chain financing, these things come up. For these areas, what we are looking at is partnering with the experts or the providers in these particular spaces. Then from
the business model will work more on those lines, not, you know, targeting the MSMEs to pay us, but more from these allied opportunities, you know, the growth and the financing will come from there. Does that address the question?
Partly. There are few other questions we always ask. In fact, the most interesting part of our work in GST is the application called Peridot, which some of you might have actually seen. It has more than 1 million downloads, but what's most fascinating is that even with just word of mouth, there are 4 lakh active users, which is a huge number by any yardstick. Active users as in using it at least once a month. From what Gautam tells me, there are almost 80,000 people, 90,000 people who use it on a daily basis. Gautam, is that right?
Yeah. On a monthly basis, we have 200,000 users. Daily, depends on the, you know, date of the month, average 20,000 users-30,000 users.
This is for a product which people don't need to come to daily, because it's not like they change their vendor every day. So thank you, Gautam, thank you, Shilpa, for your inputs on that. You know, one feedback I got after the last AGM is the opportunity for shareholders to interact with our colleagues working on different products. Which is why when Vinodji announced our initiative during the World Investor Week, which is gonna be from October 3rd - 9th, what we're actually gonna have is our product teams available for presentations. We can do deep dives into every product and look at understanding every product, and so that shareholders get a much better perspective of the company. We are in a business which is slightly complicated. It's not very easy to understand.
We hope that you will use the opportunity of the World Investor Week, which should be observed nicely as well, to basically figure out what we do, look under the hood and understand the business much better. We are unique. It's difficult to comprehend our business. At the end of the week, I think you will go forth and basically tell people what we do and why we are so significant for the Indian ecosystem. That's the reason why we have taken the World Investor Week, and I hope you will definitely participate in that. Chairman, over to you.
Thank you, Swami. That was a wonderful presentation. Now I take up item number one, two, three, four and five of the business as detailed in notice convening meeting the 22nd annual general meeting. Item number one, to receive, consider and adopt audited financial statement, standalone and consolidated of the company for the year ended 31st March , 2022, and the reports of the board of directors and auditors report thereon. Item number two, to reappoint Mr. Balachandran Krishnan, who retires by rotation and being eligible, has offered himself for reappointment. Item number three, reappointment of Mr. Bhaswar Mukherjee as an independent director of the company. In accordance with provisions of Companies Act, an independent director shall hold office for a term up to five years on the board of the company, but shall be eligible for reappointment on passing a special resolution by the company.
Disclosure of such re-appointment is to be made in board's report. Mr. Bhaswar Mukherjee was appointed as independent director of the company for the first term on 31st August 2018 for a tenure of five years, which expires on 8th October 2022. The resolution seeks the approval of members in terms of provisions of Companies Act, read with schedules and rules of SEBI listing and disclosure regulations, et cetera, for appointment of Mr. Bhaswar Mukherjee for final term of five years. Mr. Bhaswar Mukherjee, once appointed, will not be liable to retire by rotation. Item number four, reappointment of Mr. Ashok Venkatramani as an independent director of the company.
In accordance with provisions of Companies Act, an independent director shall hold office for five years and can be reappointed on reappointment on passing a special resolution by company and disclosure of such reappointment is to be made by board's report. Mr. Ashok Venkatramani was appointed as director by company on 31st August 2018 for a tenure of five years, and his tenure also expires on 8th October 2022. This resolution seeks his reappointment for the company for the second and final term of five years. Mr. Ashok Venkatramani, once appointed, will not be liable to retire by rotation. Being interested in agenda item number five, and with the consent of members present, I would like to step down as chairman of this meeting and request Mr. Ashok Venkatramani to take the chair for discussion on item number five.
Ashok, you're on mute. Ashok, you're on mute.
Thank you, Vinodji. I now take up item number five of the business as detailed in the notice convening the 22nd AGM. It is about reappointment of Mr. Vinod Agarwala as an independent director of the company. In accordance with the Companies Act, 2013, an independent director shall hold office for a term of up to five years on the board of the company and is eligible for reappointment on passing of the special resolution by the company and disclosure of such reappointment to be made in the board's report. Now, Mr. Vinod Agarwala was appointed as independent director of the company for his first term with the shareholders approval in the AGM which was held on 31st August 2018 for a tenure of five years.
The tenure of Mr. Agarwala expires on November 26, 2022. This resolution seeks the approval of the members in terms of section 149 and all the other applicable provisions of the Act for reappointment of Mr. Vinod Agarwala as a non-executive independent director of the company for a second and final term of three years. Mr. Agarwala, once appointed, will not be liable to retire by rotation. Further, pursuant to Regulation 17(1A) of SEBI Listing Regulations, please take note that Mr. Agarwala shall attain the age of 75 years on 30th October , 2024, which is during the course of his second term as a non-executive independent director.
Now considering the vast experience, expertise, and the valuable contribution of Mr. Agarwala, on the recommendation made by the nomination and remuneration committee, which was held and chaired by me on 26th May 2022. As also the board of directors at their meeting held on 27th May 2022, it's been approved for the continuation of Mr. Agarwala as non-executive independent director on the board of the company. Accordingly, pursuant to the regulations of the SEBI listing regulations, this special resolution for continuation of his directorship with effect from 30th October 2024 up to 26th November 2025, being the date of expiry of his term of office, is proposed to be passed. I would now request Mr. Vinod Agarwala to join back and take the chair of this meeting. I would like to hand over the proceedings to him.
Thank you, Ashok. We have list of shareholders who are registered as a speaker shareholder with the company and also who would like to speak on the financial statement, ask question. I would now request Mr. Swaminathan, CEO of the company, and full-time director to take over the further proceedings. Over to you, Swami.
Thank you, Anuj. At the end of the day, it's the shareholder who goes through what we do, who keeps us on our toes. We have received extraordinary inputs from shareholders in the past. We are grateful to every one of them for their valuable suggestions, for their valuable inputs. There are shareholders who ask us questions, who probe us and make us look at businesses like we've never done before. There is a shareholder who has actually referred people to us for employment, very good recommendations who we have interviewed. We've gained from association from shareholders like that. There are shareholders who have actually been involved in testing of products, which I think has been very, very useful. I mean, I can go on and on about the different ways in which our shareholders have actually added value to us.
One special person who keeps us on our toes constantly is Rohith Potti, who's a shareholder for a long time, who has sent us a set of questions already, which we will answer, after which he still has the right to ask more questions if he wants to. I request Deepta to take these questions and answer them. I will read out the questions, and Deepta, since she's centrally involved in some of the business, will actually take the questions. Deepta, the first question to you is: What's the average realization per FERC customer, net of partner fees? Assuming 140 customers and an incremental revenue in the U.S. of INR 2.17 crores in FY 2022, one gets an average realization of around $2,000, which seems to be on the lower side. Your comments.
Deepta, you're on mute. Deepta.
Yeah. I'm audible, right?
Yes.
Thank you, Swami, and thank you, Rohith, for the question. I think you're talking about the average realization per IRIS customer. Just a couple of things to keep in mind. Firstly, a bulk of the IRIS customers have signed up in the second half of FY 2022, and that's one part of it. Secondly, as per IRIS's revenue recognition policy, IRIS revenues are re-recognized evenly through the course of the year. If you just take the revenues and divide by the number of customers, you will be getting a lower figure than the average, than the actual average contract value. That math will be incorrect.
Having said that, the overall realizations of the FERC filings market are definitely lower than those of SEC and of ESEF, because the filing requirements on FERC are much more structured. I hope that answers your question.
I think with your answer, you also answered part of the next question, which is about revenue recognition policy in the case of FERC. He also wants to know about revenue recognition policy in the case of ESMA filing, which I think is very similar to FERC. It also has to be done over the course of the year because of Ind AS. Are all revenues generated from the filings done in FY 2022 already recognized in the profit and loss account? I think even I can answer the question no, because of the way it's scattered over a period of time. The third question that he has is does the ARR of INR 47 crore include entire ARR from U.S. and Europe won by IRIS? What is expected to drive ARR growth going forward?
Sure. Yes, the ARR of INR 47 crore includes the entire ARR from U.S. and Europe, which is won by IRIS. That's correct. The second part, which is what is expected to drive ARR growth. See, there are like two, three things. One is whenever there are new mandates, where you know, our solutions find an opportunity, there are typically step jumps in ARR. Right? That is one. The second is when there are no new mandates, then there are two factors. One is switch and replacement, so our ability to switch existing customers from other providers that can contribute to ARR growth, the replacement markets. The second is, of course, our ability to retain our own customers.
The second is the ability to upsell or cross-sell other solutions not necessarily related to mandates. For example, in the case of IRIS Carbon, we are just starting to roll out a disclosure management solution. That is not dependent on mandates. A step jump when we have new mandates and otherwise incrementally as we attract new customers or offer you know roll out new offerings not related to mandates.
The fourth question where Rohith already assumes that we're doing a rights issue. Just give you an update on the rights issue. We have received approval from one exchange, but approval is not considered to be complete until both exchanges give their approval. It's a matter of time before it happens, and that's when we make the disclosure. He wants to know the proposed use of the rights issue, which products, which geographies, which expense items will be particularly targeted on our spend round. That question I will answer. It's very easy to answer. I think Carbon doesn't require much sensitivity in a significant way. It's Create and Consume, where we are running after customers, where the spend will go, and it will most basically be largely on marketing and sales in terms of putting feet on street.
Deepta, can you just focus a little bit on our recent hire in America, where we recruited somebody for on-the-ground sales and what we're trying to do there and any other markets where we are scaling up our sales and marketing team.
We have recruited one additional resource in the U.S. markets because we see opportunities not only for FERC and ACFR, but we also see upcoming opportunities in newer areas like government reporting, ACERS, and also in ESG. Having said that, if we have to you know successfully make a dent or kind of you know get our maximum returns in each of these for each of these opportunities, we need to ramp up our sales staff even higher in the U.S. market. Similarly, in the European market, at this point in time, we have one resource who's kind of on the ground over there, and of course we have resources over here.
Again, we see opportunities coming up in the European markets, again, ESG being another one, where we need to ramp up our sales presence for sure, in that market as well.
The last question that Rohith had that he sent across to us was out-of-India revenues of INR 27.5 crores, how much came from GST related products? That's a question Balu can handle. Balu?
Yeah, sure. I can do that.
How much came from GST related products?
I would say that, you know, if you look at the previous year, which is effectively 2, maybe as much as 40% of revenues will come from the GST compliance products.
Thank you. The next question is, I think this Gautam is best placed to handle it. Gautam, are you still there? What is the current competitive intensity in the area of GST and what's the potential over the next three to five years? Gautam did come up with a blue sky figure for me, which is, like, fairly large. We won't get into the numbers here, but Gautam, can you tell us the lay of the land in terms of GST, what's actually happening broadly, the competitive landscape? Rohith, the most important thing is the revenues won't necessarily come from filing. It's a point that Deepta made a little while ago about how it will come from adjacent offerings. I think Gautam is best placed and best positioned to expand on that. Gautam?
Sure. Actually, you know, if you look at the overall size of the India market and we slice it into various categories, it's actually a pyramid. We call it as category A, B, C. Category A is the top large corporates, 7,500 in number, and category B is about 75 lakh taxpayers who are currently in the GST who are GST registered. Category C is the long tail of MSMEs, about 7 crore in number, which are currently outside of the GST ambit, but would be coming as more and more the economy gets formalized over a period of next three to four years. We see, you know, they moving into the GST ambit.
Now, our focus, as IRIS GST has always been the top segment of customers, the 7,500 corporates we work with. We offer some kind of a solution to close to about, you know, 1,000 odd corporates. Now, solution offering has always been in the compliance space. So compliance as a hook becomes the first thing. But then there's a lot of consolidation that is happening in the space now with competition, you know, coming in and offering going upstream, offering AR/AP integrations that are basically cash flow solutions and going downstream into, you know, credit offerings or analytics and, you know, related solution offerings.
At IRIS, we also have a similar, you know, growth plan of going deeper with our existing customers, going upstream as well as downstream, as well as reach out to the new customers, with the entire thing. In this whole space, there is this consolidation that's happening and is bound to happen as we go, you know, in the coming years. Slowly, you know, this actually percolates on because an anchor is always linked to a supplier or a customer or a dealer distributor on, they buy and they sell to someone. With the formalization of this entire chain, there's an opportunity to actually integrate right from the source till the last end consumer.
With an IRP license also coming in play, IRIS, you know, is well poised to actually look at completely digitizing the entire chain end to end. That's what our plan is for the next two to three years.
Rohith, to add to what Gautam said, when new things happen, you can't really anticipate how the world will change.
Did I answer the question or?
Yes, you answered the question. Thank you. Thank you, Gautam. Rohith, what I was saying is that when things change, when a dramatic shift happens in the market, you can't always anticipate what new opportunities will actually come. This IRP thing came as a pleasant surprise for us when it actually happened. Of course, when the application was sought, we applied. I think almost about 30 people, 40 people applied and we issued four permanent licenses. That's a huge endorsement of what we've actually done in the GST space. I think we're gonna get surprised by what's gonna happen on the GST front, not because we are not sharing. Because I think we're gonna get surprised as a company in terms of the opportunities coming up.
The idea is to be ready for it with solutions, with the ability to be nimble and put feet on the street to get ahead. Rohith, you told me that you might have many more questions to follow up on what you've sent us. Please, Rohith, the floor is yours if you have any more questions. Can somebody make Rohith a panelist in case Rohith wants to ask a question? Can you get the panelist name, Parikh's name up so we can actually see? Rohith, are you there if you still have a question? Rohith Potti. Rohith P., the first one. Yes. Rohith, you've been promoted as a panelist from what I can see.
Rohith, sir, we have unmuted you.
Yeah. Yeah.
Please ask your question.
Yeah. Thank you so much for the opportunity again. I mean, first, it's great to see the energy in the presentation, in the initial presentation and the rebranding is also in a very interesting exercise, so thank you for sharing all the thought process behind it as well. I have a few more questions on the annual report, so I'll go through them one by one. Before that, first I wanna some more clarification on Deepta ma'am's response to my written questions. On one hand, we said that the revenue recognition of U.S. and Europe is over a period of a year because of Ind AS requirements.
We said that the ARR of INR 47.5 crore includes the entire revenue that we generated from the FERC and the ESMA wins. I'm not able to reconcile that, because that would imply that for example, we saw the U.S. revenue go up from INR 1.1-odd crore to INR 3.3 crores. It's around INR 2.1 crore. It doesn't make sense that in the FERC market of 800 customers where we have the second largest market share, but the revenue that we generated from that market is roughly around INR 2 crore. Does that mean that there is no more revenue to be recognized from that?
I'm not able to reconcile both of them. I don't know if I'm able to convey my question properly.
Rohith, the point is the way you calculate ARR is different from the way you report in the financial books of accounts. In the books of accounts, you're dictated by the terms of Ind AS to report it. In ARR, you report for the whole 12 months. The two are calculated very differently. The treatment, accounting treatment of the two are very different, and that's why the frequency is very important to be able to know the right number.
Would it be right to say that the ARR increase from 40-odd to INR 47 crore is entirely...? Rephrase the question again in a different way. In August last year, when we had the AGM presentation, we had an ARR of INR 44 crore. At the end of the year, we have an ARR of INR 47 crore. We also mentioned in the AGM last year that majority of the growth we expect in the second half, we are gonna see a lot of growth coming from FERC and ESMA because that happens in the second half. Does that mean that, in the second half, I mean, after the AGM, we were able to win only INR 3-odd crore of ARR?
Because that also doesn't seem to fit what the expectation would be, from ESMA and FERC revenue growth that we could expect.
Rohith, you remember we also mentioned that we lost some U.K. business. Therefore, the revenue actually dropped on account of clients lost in U.K. Therefore, the number that we added more than numbers we actually mentioned because it more. The increase happened in spite of the U.K. loss.
U.K. loss was how much, value-wise?
For INR 3 odd crores, if I recall right.
Oh, okay. INR 3 odd crores. South Africa was pushed, you had also mentioned, right?
South Africa got delayed because people were given additional time to file, and therefore the revenue recognition registered a loss.
That was included in the ARR, is it?
No. I don't have the answer to the question. I need to get back to you to answer the question. Excellent question.
Okay. What is the quantum there?
I don't know offhand. We will get back to you with the answer.
Perfect. Perfect, sir. I'll continue with the rest of my questions. If you could, the Disclosure Management Suite was interesting to know about. If you could, detail more information on that. What do you see the market, geographical as well as the value market potential for the space? That would be very interesting to hear.
Deepta, you want to take the question, disclosure management?
I'm sorry. I was not able to hear you clearly, Rohith. My apologies.
The opportunity of disclosure management. The opportunity from the Disclosure Management Suite.
I'd say it's too early to say. You know, we have rolled out our disclosure management module first in the European markets. Like we do with every new offering or every product, Rohith, we ensure that it stabilizes first with customers. This came because we had two partners in Europe who was strongly asking for disclosure management solutions for the customers. It's kind of a backward integration from the final filing, one step deeper, which is the actual creation itself. We see kind of the good part of this as this not being mandate driven. One of our partners is actually saying that once this stabilizes, they can take this to a lot of their unlisted customers as well.
Having said that, we've kind of got our early wins. We, you know, got our first customer in the European market we will be rolling out. Our partners are beginning to offer it to others as well. I think we'll be able to answer this with a little bit more clarity once the product is out there, once customers actually use it, and once we're able to kind of push it down the channel further. Why we are optimistic about this is it's an adjacency which can go to all of the existing customer base and beyond, and it also takes us beyond mandates. We also see the same requirement in the U.S. market. One of our partners in Canada is kind of asking for the same product and is already engaging with us on this.
Little too soon to kind of quantify it.
Also, Rohith, you'll understand that disclosure management software can be sold only with feet on street. It's much deeper client engagement stage that we need to do. Part of the question that you asked about what the money will be used for is basically getting more feet on street to be able to push the product either in Europe or other markets, and U.S. and other markets.
Perfect. That was helpful.
One second. Deepta, we already have our first customer for disclosure management, right?
Correct. We've signed up our first customer for disclosure management in Europe. You're correct. We signed up our first customer.
We've signed up one customer, and how many demos have we done already?
I wouldn't be able.
Anu, are you there? Anu, if you're there, can you answer the question in terms of how many demos we've done in Europe for the disclosure management tool?
Sure. We've kind of met about eight to 10 customers who've expressed their, you know, interest, and we've done demos. We've got about around 30 customers who've expressed interest, you know, post-August. It's usually July and August is supposed to be vacation months. Suppose that we've got about, you know, a substantial number of customers who've expressed interest, but demos would be around eight to 10 customers that we've done.
Rohith, basically Anu and a colleague of ours, Shraddha, were traveling in Europe. They met a number of companies. We worked with the partners and therefore once certain things fall in place, you'll actually see them going back there and doing demos. Once couple of more people with feet on ground, feet on street are established, they'll all go around doing demos. Because it is a high customer engagement stage.
What would be the realization? Would it be higher than IRIS Carbon and ESMA realization or how would that look?
Deepta?
Deepta, you should go back and you don't go on mute until this is over, please.
Sure. We are still discovering, Rohith. We have seen disclosure management solutions. For example, if you take Workiva, right? Which is the one that we always look to, kind of, guidance for and then try and peg below. Their solution starts $30,000 upwards. We have seen, you know, certain et cetera at like, you know, $22,000-$23,000 upwards. So we are still in the discovery process, in terms of understanding what our version of disclosure management we can peg it.
Anu, when you met companies. Anu, again, don't go on mute until this session is over. Anu, can you please share with us what sort of numbers you think might fly adding to what Deepta said?
Yeah. Overall, you know, I wouldn't put numbers at this point in time because I think, like I said, you know, we've got around like 30 companies who've expressed interest in a disclosure management. Overall, if you see from a market perspective, the players which exist, you know, their solutions are very, very expensive. We also hear, you know, some news wherein like, you know, Workiva as an example, who's supposed to be the number one in the disclosure management space, they've been offering the solution at like EUR 100,000. You know, like EUR 100,000, EUR 150,000. That seems to be kind of a very, very expensive one.
Of course this number of 30, what we did was we rolled out a survey to our customers, you know, after filing is over. We asked a bunch of questions, "How happy are you with, you know, IRIS Carbon and the overall product?" and stuff like that. Since we were rolling out the disclosure management, we also asked a couple of questions, "How are you preparing your annual reports? Would you be interested?" This number 30 is derived from there. However, we do intend to reach out to the rest of the customers because a lot of them do not know what a disclosure management means. We definitely do intend to reach out to the rest of the customers.
Like how Deepta ma'am said, it's a little too early, but we are really hoping from September onwards, we can start connecting with customers in a more, you know, engaging manner.
Also, Rohith, as you'll understand, in those countries, the first question is never or "Kitne mein dega?" "Kitne mein dega?" comes after the need is established. I think that's the way it'll actually proceed. Rohith, over to you.
Thank you. Thank you for the detailed answer. Coming to Collect, in the last AGM, there was excitement about this business with things opening up. I think we've not probably closed any major deals so far. When do you think attraction would come here?
Shailesh, are you on the call?
Yes, Ram, I'm here.
Without getting into specifics of where we are bidding and whatever, can you give a broad overlay of what the current status is in terms of opening up of regulators, plans for implementing a Collect platform? We will-
Yeah. You know, we've started getting RFPs this year and, you know, markets in Africa are really active. Middle East is slightly active, but we've kind of responded to about 4 RFPs, whose result will be coming out in the next quarter or so. We are hopeful on that axis.
We are bidding in Latin America, we're bidding in Africa, we're bidding in Asia, right?
Correct.
Okay. Rohith, does that answer your question?
Yes. Look forward to that. Coming back to Europe and U.S., one thought or suggestion I have is that it would be great if you can sort of give, like you give a revenue division, geographic division among different geographies. If you could do the same for ARR, if it is possible, that would be great because it would help map the growth in each of the geographies because otherwise we're not able to get a sense of what the actual market size in terms of value is for each of the filings. If that is possible, that would be helpful. Coming to ARR specifically, other than ESG implementation and switch and replace in Europe, are there any other growth opportunities?
In U.S., what's happening with the second half of second phase of FERC filings? That would be great to know. What is the timeline there, and what is the timeline potentially for the muni filings as well? That would be great to know.
Let me address the ARR question first. In fact, personally, and this is my personal view, I'm in two minds even about sharing ARR numbers for a very simple reason. As Shailesh said, we've got 4 RFPs currently pending. There are many more that we expect to be able to bid on in the days ahead. The nature of our collect business is such that it's very lumpy. The moment you win, you win two collect business, three collect business opportunities, our percentage of recurring revenues actually come down dramatically, which may lead to misleading inferences by people. For example, one of the reasons why our overseas business actually went down as percentage of total business is because RBI actually went up. I think it will be misleading, I think.
The more granular we get, the more misleading it could be. Having said that, we recognize what you said. We recognize the value of what you actually said. Let's discuss it internally and talk about whether it makes sense. Because we have had situations that people have come to us said, "Oh my god, business is falling." No, it's not falling. RBI has gone up. The lumpy nature of our collect business has actually gone up. I think, to people, if people understand this breakup, that's why I keep saying it's a complicated business to understand. Your point is well taken. We will try and see what we can actually do. In terms of municipal business, Balu, you wanna take that, where we stand? We've done a few pilots in a few states, but Balu will take over.
Florida, Illinois are a couple of states where pilots have actually happened. Nothing concrete has come out of it. States have the time to decide when to roll it out, but let me not steal Balu's thunder.
No, nothing. You know, very significant to add over and above what Subramaniam Swaminathan and Deepta Rangarajan spoke right now. It is true that Florida and in the state of Michigan.
Mm-hmm.
that they made some good progress. For example, a couple of taxonomies have come out and pilots
Done by us.
Yeah, done by us. Pilots are around the corner. Then primarily done by us with XBRL U.S. also participating. We are in the thick of things in terms of, you know, evangelizing it and speaking to states and looking at doing pilots. Our expectation is, from a mandate point of view, maybe, you know, late next year, or, you know, it's too early to say, but there could be some action. But, you know, the whole area is very exciting because there are thousands of state agencies, and once one state comes in, the other states should follow. Of course, there are some political processes involved because the states have the right to determine the taxonomy while the municipal bond privileges managed by the federal government.
They are sorting these things out at this point of time.
Rohith, does that answer your question?
Yeah. The [inaudible] , yes. If you could-
Yes.
Yeah.
You asked for phase two FE RC.
Yeah.
Deepta, Anu, one of you. Phase two FERC.
FERC phase two, at this point in time, there is no news as yet. There's no official announcement from the FERC. We're still waiting for that. Anu, if you have anything to add.
No, nothing.
Anu, do you wanna add to that?
Yeah. No, nothing specific. We are also trying to see if there is any, you know, updates on that, but nothing that we hear at the moment.
Okay. Thank you. Rohith.
Yeah. I'm aware I'm taking a lot of time, so I'll just quickly go through my last few questions on the financials. One suggestion is probably in the presentation, if you can also indicate what proportion of the shareholding is owned by employees, I think that would be a good indication in general, for shareholders, if they're fine having that. If you guys think it makes sense to have it separately. Just, thought I'd give you that suggestion.
Good point. That's taken note. It will be done.
Yeah. On the financials, a few questions. There is this number of INR 13 crore in contract assets. What are these contract assets? This number is increasing at a very sharp pace, and the greater than six months overdue is almost INR 5.5 crore this year. It's jumped up from INR 1 crore last year. That was first question on contract asset. There is, on liabilities, an unearned and deferred revenue that has increased to INR 8.5 crore. If you could speak about this, the accounting, what is this? How will it flow into the P&L, etc.? That would be great. On financials, my third question is on partner fees. It's gone up to 9% of revenues from 7% of revenues.
At a 34% year-on-year growth, it's gone up fast, much faster than the growth in revenues in Create, where I believe we use this particularly. Could we share more details on this? A similar observation on legal and professional and consultancy fees as well, which has gone up from INR 3.3 crore to INR 4 crore. Primarily partner fees is what I think I'd be more interested in hearing about.
Balu or Vineet? Vineet. My colleague Vineet, who works closely with Balu and who is Balu's colleague, will actually take the question on partner fee or on all the questions you had. Vineet, over to you.
Yeah, hi, Rohith. Good afternoon. First question you asked about the contract asset. Actually, that is regarding the unbilled revenue, and that is basically for the contract which we have with TCS for the RBI CIMS project. We are recognizing the revenue from that project based on the percentage of completion method, as well mandated by the Ind AS accounting standard. As we have already told in many of the earnings calls before that, this contract is basically back-ended contract, where the billing is not happening on what efforts we are spending and how much work is being done. The revenue is being recognized and that is being parked on the contract asset.
If you see the contract assets of around INR 13 crore, INR 9.6 crore is basically from that contract, which we are yet to bill, though we have completed our part of the work. The contract is such that it's a back-to-back arrangement between TCS and IRIS. When TCS gets paid by RBI, we will get paid by TCS. That's why you see that jump in the contract asset.
The deferred revenue, when you ask, deferred revenue is actually the income which is being deferred in case of USA and Europe as well as a few of the AMC contracts as well, which in the case of iPay, where the revenue is being recognized over a period of time. When we get money in advance, the revenue is being recognized over a period of time till the financial reporting end. After that, the revenue is being deferred, which will be recognized in the subsequent periods.
Sorry, Vineet, this is very, very helpful. Just wanted to follow up. In case of contract assets, the revenue has already been recognized, but the cash has to come in, which will come in hopefully this year or something. In case of the deferred revenue, the deferred revenue number that you've indicated, that will be recognized over the course of this financial year. Am I right?
Correct. Correct.
Multiple financial years.
Multiple financial year, you can say.
Okay. Perfect.
Could be more than one financial year.
At times we would have a three-year contract where the customer paid, you know, the whole amount upfront as well. It could vary.
Interrupt one second for people who may be joining for the first time. We are implementing in partnership with TCS a compliance platform at RBI. The primary contract is between TCS and RBI, and the payment terms within RBI and TCS are different. We work through TCS to deliver what needs to be done, though we have direct visibility to RBI and we have people working with RBI in making this happen. The work that we do, we get paid by TCS, but at the same time, for this to happen, it's still a personal clause that TCS has with RBI. The work that we have done is not without value. There, the revenues are recognized in the manner that Vineet actually mentioned, but the payment will come to us based on RBI paying TCS, and that's where the complication arises.
It's done in accordance with accounting standards, working with the statutory auditors and the internal auditors in a manner which is completely kosher. Go on.
Sorry, one follow-up question to Vineet again. The deferred revenue, which primarily for Europe and I'm guessing the FERC revenue is also included. I'm sorry to harp on this, but is this deferred revenue portion of INR 8.5 crore, whatever portion is attributed to ESEF and FERC, has that portion of revenues been included in the ARR calculation?
Yes, Rohith. Yes. 47 includes all the, our, the actual ARR which we have with-
Annualized.
Annualized revenue.
Rohith, ARR is different, revenue is recognized differently. That's the fundamental disconnect happening here.
Perfect. Sure. Thank you. Yeah. Please.
Yeah. The third question you asked, Rohith, about the partner fee.
Yeah.
Rohith, are you there?
Yeah. I am. Yeah.
The third question, partner fees.
Yeah. The partner fee since, if you see that, we also have a partner who is working with us on the RBI CIMS project, as well. That expense has already is recognized this year.
We have partners in Europe and USA market. As the revenue is increasing there, probably the partner fee will also increase. That's the two component of the partner fee which is leading to the increase in the partner fee.
The partner fee, Rohith, for your understanding, has two components. One is partners who deliver on the technology front or the consulting front, and there are partners who work business sales and marketing front. The two together are lumped together. Am I right, Manish?
Yes, yes.
The two together are lumped together. The lumpiness happens because of the lumpiness of the
Collect business.
The primary Collect business. In the Collect business, there is a certain lumpiness, and that lumpiness will get reflected in the partners fees where we rope in partners for certain components of what we do in the case of a Collect segment work.
Perfect. Sir, one more suggestion, because you repeatedly mentioned that the way the ARR and the revenues are calculated is different. But I guess my confusion stemmed from the fact that we've consistently disclosed how ARR forms so much percentage of revenues. So that seems to indicate that there is a link. I mean, it's a one-to-one relationship between the two. So maybe that could be disclosed differently. Just a thought. I just end my questions here and let other shareholders ask, please. Thank you.
Any suggestions you have on how we recognize it, please send it to us. We will certainly share it with our board and let the board take a view. Thank you, Rohith, for your questions. We have a number of other shareholders who actually have asked to speak at the conference. Mr. Saket Kapoor, if you're there, the floor is yours. Is Mr. Saket Kapoor there?
Yes, sir.
Yes, please, sir. Go ahead. The floor is yours. We're listening.
Saket, sir? Please.
Yeah, you can. Yeah, yeah. Mr. Sir, am I audible right now?
Loud and clear. Very loud and clear. No, not to worry.
Namaskar, sir.
Thank you. Namaskar.
Yeah. Inder sir, thank you for this opportunity to participate today in this AGM, sir. Lot of enlightenment for investors to have such a descriptive answers and question answers. This is an example how AGM should be conducted wherein an equal opportunity to all investors should be given. Thank you, sir, for firstly the opportunity. While going through the business model and all, there are a couple of points, suggestions which I would like to put forward, and I have some observations also. Firstly with the observation points, sir, I think so, sir, we have spoken in length about what the opportunity lies in the horizon or in the vicinity, but our scale of operations are still very modest.
Would like to understand when this actual scaling up happens, in terms of revenue reaching even the INR 100 crore mark on an annual basis. What are the factors that will lead to growth in revenues going ahead? Since the scale of operations are very moderate. If I could understand the landscape in which we are operating, if you could give some, throw some more light, what kind of market share are we commanding currently in the business, in the fields where we are operating, and what can be scaled up to, say, two years, three years, five years down the line? Since you have spoken about the rights issue also, sir, I'll just chip in my question about the size of the rights issue which you are contemplating.
I missed that part. Sir, for the segment-wise revenue point, which you have mentioned about Collect, Create, and Consume, if you could throw light on how to gauge the size of these segments wherein I think Collect has we have. In the Collect segment, we have posted losses for the June quarter. Is it against the critical mass that will be attained or the lumpiness of the nature of the segment, if that could be explained? Sir, employee cost definitely it forms a major cost component. What type of rationalization as Ashok Venkatramani has in the very early in introductory remarks did mention about the vulnerabilities arising due to COVID-19.
How is this line item going to shape up going ahead? What steps are we taking to rationalize the same? Sir, you spoke about our presence in various geographies. If you could throw some more light, what the export component has been last year out of the total business pie, and what are we eyeing going ahead with, I think so, a lot of work in the geographies of Europe and U.S., as mentioned in your opening remarks. A lot of discussion has already gone through. If you could give detail on the same.
Sir, coming to the point about this tie-up with the TCS and RBI for the compliance purpose, if you could throw some more light on which segment of which compliances for which category are we going to service through this platform? I think so. I have in particular also would like to speak about the NBFC compliances for which I think so the entire thing has moved from a COSMOS base to the XBRL format. I would like to understand what is the size and the term of the contract which we have with RBI in terms of the migration that has happened from COSMOS to the XBRL front?
Sir, what's your feedback? How have the NBFCs complied or, what's the feedback from the NBFC in terms of this migration? I think we started way back, if I'm not wrong, sometime in the December month of 2020, when we were given a demonstration about how the platform works. Now we are, I think so, more than 18 months, 16 months, 17 months to it. How have been the migration? How have the compliance happened? Does there is a roadmap through which RBI would be paying you, how the compliances with the NBFC is happening, what are the troubles they are facing and how's your helpdesk looking after it?
Sir, I've been a client. I am doing compliances for my NBFC, and over a period of time did face hardship in the same. Also I have suggestions that this can be taken as a business opportunity also, wherein small NBFCs who are NBFC because of the nature, very small nature of business. Somebody like an NBFC only investing in equity and mutual funds. But they have to comply with these compliances on a quarterly annual basis only because they are falling in the ambit. Since they are falling in the ambit of it.
We can also provide a service portal through which these compliances can be made done by IRIS itself, by the collection of data from these small NBFCs at a primary cost, and thereby creating a revenue generating system on the basis of the same. Since these small NBFCs have to push around, rush, watch videos and things like that, and mailing continuously to your helpdesk to get the feedback. I know the bandwidth for the compliance, the number of NBFCs and the bandwidth of your staff strength does not matches completely. There have been cases which I have spoken to, I think to Mr. Dwivedi, about it, through mails and also reported to Mr. Sharma day before yesterday also and earlier also. That I can take forward.
I feel that this could be a business opportunity for IRIS going ahead. Wherein we can look after their compliances in a portal where you are taking data from them. That could be done in that manner. Also, sir, you should try to collect feedback from NBFCs. You should also try to see the total number of NBFCs registered, how many have complied, what is the data pending, then getting back to them and getting things sorted. Maybe you can construct a fee structure. Maybe you can look at getting them compliant. Because migrating from a system for all people is not an easy task. Not everybody is tech-savvy.
Even those people are learning and tech-savvy, but the language format, the systems doesn't gel the way it has been. I have faced issues with the same. This was my understanding. Sir, also, sir, going ahead, I think so, sir, even other opportunities can open up in the form of the income tax filing of returns also. We have the bandwidth. I don't know whether we are doing any work with the IT department, but that can be another step with now insights coming into play. Every data is now being collated at the Income Tax department, through which filing of returns and reconciliation will become much easier going ahead.
Our partnership with the income tax department and helping small business enterprises in being compliant in filing of returns could be another business engine for us going ahead. Since we are in the domain, we are in the fray, and we are in constant touch with other regulatory bodies. This proposal can also be taken up. Also, sir, realigning things, income tax, RBI, Ministry of Corporate Affairs, all this can be singly realigned by a CIN number and a PAN number of the entity. These things can be very easily streamlined and a single token service can be charged from people like you, wherein we investors or we participants can join hands and create this as a seamless platform of all sorts of filing.
Herein, sir, we are filing at different regulatory bodies for the same data again and again. You prepare your P&L balance sheet, file it with the Income Tax, then you prepare the same stuff, file it with RBI, then you prepare the same stuff, file it with the corporate affairs. There's a duplication of work that happens on a continuous basis, and that involves the same manpower to work again and again, paying fees at all stages. How can these things be consolidated at one end and can be streamlined? That was my thought process, which I think that this is a very godsend opportunity for me to speak in front of you, putting forward my point of understanding, sir.
I'm a layman in this aspect. This is only the points which I could what I'm experiencing over a period of time. I just thought if you people can look after these three aspects, income tax, RBI and MCA, and aligning all these three steps, having the same line of business, same line of data we're compiling again and again, things can go look very different than what the compliances are happening today. Looking forward for engagement if my points that deliberate any merit, we'll look into it.
I think so, sir, definitely the work which you have done for the XBRL, there should be a system wherein you should check what are the problems, specific problems, the generalized set of problems, and how can those be addressed, by the form of forming a WhatsApp group or a YouTube live or any way in which things can be addressed to the large section at a particular go, since you have all the database of NBFC. These are my few points, sir. I would love to hear from you. If I have something else to speak, definitely, I will, and just excuse me for a couple of points.
Saketji, thank you very, very much for your inputs. You know, shareholders like you who are also customers are extremely valuable to a company. Every input of yours will be taken note of and we'll respond to it. I will respond to all of them together once we finish with other shareholders who want to speak as well. We have Gyaneshwar Kamlakar Bhagwat who's there. Gyaneshwarji, if you're there, we would love to take your inputs and have your comments. Please keep it brief, because ultimately I don't want to get killed by other shareholders as well in terms of the time given. Gyaneshwarji, over to you. Gyaneshwar Kamlakar Bhagwat. Can you look at the system?
Gyaneshwar, sir, please unmute yourself.
Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Hello, sir. Can you hear me, sir?
Yes, sir.
Can you hear me, sir? Thank you very much, sir. First of all.
Sir, camera chalu karein to aapka shakl dikhega, sir.
Sir, mera camera mein problem hai. Iske liye main aapse maafi chahta hoon, sir.
Koi baat nahi, bataiye.
First of all, thank you very much, sir, for calling my name. My name is Gyaneshwar K. Bhagwat. I'm calling from Mumbai, Borivali. Secondly, I thanks, company secretary, Mr. Santosh Kumar Sharma, for sending me the soft copy well in advance, which is full of knowledge, even thanks for sending, giving me the hard copy also, so I thanks to him. Secondly, about the financial part, opening remark from you that lot of other person has given the all the details. So in my mind there is no question because everything is there, so no more asking the question. Thirdly, I support all the resolution. Only, sir, only my grievance is that I'm sorry, jaisa ki bolte hai chota muh badi baat. Sir, mujhe yeh request karni hai ki aapne jaise Mr.
Rohith aur jise Saket ji ka jo abhi aapne reply kiya hai, toh sir main aapse yeh request karna chahta hoon ki baaki shareholder ko sunne ke baad agar aap sabka sawal ek saath sawal ka jawab de toh achha rahega, sir. Mera yeh request hai. Agar maine kuch zyada bada, bura bol diya toh main aapse maafi chahta hoon, sir. Rest thank you very much. No more question.
Gyaneshwarji, aapki baat sab procedure sahi hai. In the case of Rohith, he had sent us the questions in advance even before-
Yes, sir.
the meeting.
Yes, sir.
That's why he answers it one by one immediately. It is-
Okay, sir.
Sir, normally kya hota hai, ek saath jab question aata hai, we just take notes. If you send in advance, hum prepare bhi karke aate hai. Kyonki sab kuch ka jawab ek jagah turant milna bahot mushkil hai. Kyonki documents kahin se lena padta hai. Rohith actually had sent us the question in advance, which allowed us to prepare for it. Please-
Sir, main-
Maaf kar dijiyega. Aapki koi baat bura main manega. Agli baar se please question pehle se bhejiye ki hum bhi tayyar hoke aaye, sir.
Sir, pehli baat toh maine bhi question bheje the. Hello?
Haan.
Hello. Sir, maine bhi question bheje the, lekin main yeh chahta hoon ki sir, sabke sawal sunne ke baad agar aap email karoge toh email ka jawab bhi doge toh bhi chalega, sir. Agar kisi ki-
Dekho, Gyaneshwarji.
Agar kisi ki baat mera bura laga toh, main aapse maafi chahta hoon.
That's what we said.
Sir, main dobara aapse maafi chahta hoon, sir.
Sir, ye company aapka hai. Pehli baat ye ki company aapka hai. Mera jitna hak banta hai, aapka bhi utna hi hak banta hai. Therefore, aapko har hak hai prashna puchne ka, aur meri zimmedari as a trustee of the company to answer your questions. Please don't take, please don't embarrass me by saying things like this. Aapka hak banta hai. We will be replying to the questions even through a filing with the BSE. This event is also being recorded. It's also be available. Don't worry, all questions will get answered. Gyaneshwarji, bahot dhanyawaad. Thank you very much. I now go to Mohan Ghanshyamdas Chandiramani. Mohanji, aap hain? Mohan Ghanshyamdas Chandiramaniji.
Sir, said person is not joined.
He's not there? Okay. Next, I go to Bharat Pratap Singh Negi.
Sir, not joined.
Bharat is not there. We have Lata Bharat Negi. Not there. We come back to. Let me get to Saketji's questions. Saketji, because of the kind of questions that you had, that we have decided to institute this week-long program in October, where we will do a deep dive into every single product, and we will take feedback from users, clients and everybody else. I think in some senses, we've anticipated these issues. See, ultimately, when we develop the software for RBI, we do not. We are doing it on a fixed price for the RBI. We can't keep charging NBFC more and more for whatever we actually do for them. We have an NCA practice where we work with people. We will have the RBAC specified project. We will be in contact with you.
I think your suggestion is very well taken. What you are talking about is the possibility of an integrated filing platform. Let me address the most important question that you asked, in your view, as a shareholder. We have a scale-up. That's the most important question you asked. What we don't have is marketing money. If we had marketing muscle, we would move much faster. We would grow more, grow much faster. The reason we're looking at the rights issue, the reason we're looking at things like that, is basically to raise enough resources to push ahead and grow faster. Secondly, sir, until last year we were a struggling company. We were in deep crisis and we've just come out of the crisis. We are now on a strong wicket. Therefore, growth can happen only from a position of strength.
Growth cannot happen from a position of weakness. You will actually see some of the issues getting sorted out going forward. You talked about employee costs. We still underpay our employees compared to the market. I think some fair amount of revision needs to be done. All that you will see happening going forward. As far as NBFC feedback is concerned, the call desk, as you know, comes to our office. When an NBFC makes a filing, if they have a problem, they call us, we respond to it immediately. I'm so happy that you reached out. Sandeep Dwivedi is one of our smarter people in the company who works closely with RBI. If you have any feedback to offer directly to RBI, ultimately that comes to us, and we endeavor to respond to it immediately.
You'll actually see that, sir, any transition of any kind that actually happens is not painless. It always go through a bit of struggle. It's basically we need to understand your problem, you need to understand our problems. But it's more important that we understand your problems first and solve the problem or solve your concern, and that's what we're actually trying to do. I think every one of your points is very well taken. When we organize the week-long investor week, during the time of the IOSCO World Investor Week, I hope you will come and we can sit together, go product by product, and look at what all can be done. Balveer, if you wanna add something, you're most welcome to.
You mentioned about the TCS partnership that we have that is related to something called CIMS project, Centralized Information and Management System project. This is getting implemented. It has been in the works for the last couple of years. We're looking at replacing the existing system which we built. Even the new system, we are doing a substantial part of the work, which includes analytics part as well as far as TCS is concerned. That is going to be integrated system and that will slowly take over whatever is happening right now, including the XBRL filings that are happening through the existing system. Which will mean that even the NBFC filings will move into this over a period of time.
Balu, do you wanna add something?
No.
Okay. Any others who might want to ask questions, you're welcome to raise your hand and we can take it forward. Can you please see the list of participants, see where they raise their hands. If you need to unmute them. The floor is yours. I think Saket is gonna follow up. Saket, over to you. Saket, the floor is yours. Can you please repeat?
Yes, sir. Thank you for the follow-up, sir. Just wanted some data of how the migration has been, sir, currently from how many NBFCs as per your data.
Sir, no. Sir. We don't have visibility from RBI side. That's a question you should ask RBI.
Okay.
That's not a question to which we have an answer.
Okay.
You need to ask RBI those questions because we are only vendors to RBI.
Okay.
These are all things that we will not even know.
Okay.
We will not even know who all had difficulty unless they will actually tell us.
Okay.
We work for RBI. We have no visibility to NBFCs except to the extent that you call us and say there's a problem.
You don't have no milestone set up.
Sir, the responsibility of compliance is not mine.
No.
The onus of compliance is between RBI and me. I have milestone set up in terms of my software delivery to RBI. That is what I'm accountable for. I'm accountable for solving problems that NBFCs have in the course of migration. If the NBFCs reach out to me in the proper manner, I have a responsibility to reach out and solve the problem, if RBI gives me a feedback in terms of what needs to be fixed. Ultimately, the software belongs to RBI. It's between RBI and you in terms of who's compliant, who's not compliant. I have no say in that matter.
Sir, in that case, I think your team you should look at the strengthening of the team, sir. Because that is where we people filing for the NBFCs have faced issues and over a period of time our mails have remained unanswered. It may be because of n number of factors because of pressure from the end. I think the helpdesk team from your end needs to strengthen up and response to calls, response to mails from the customer because that would only strengthen your software, the vulnerabilities which we people are facing, sir. That is what
We will look into it immediately. I must also tell you that we've been working with RBI from 2008. We are now in 2022. We have never received this feedback, but to your credit, we take it very, very seriously and look into it immediately. Thank you.
Sir, I have the emails with me, so anyway.
Sir, I believe you totally.
Yeah.
Sir, I believe you totally.
Yeah. I can validate the same also, sir.
Sir, I started by saying we will look into it immediately.
We look forward for better coordination, sir.
Thank you.
And so that-
Thank you.
We can be better compliance citizens.
Thank you.
Thank you, sir.
Chairman, over to you.
Thank you. Thank you. I hope all questions have been answered, and I am thankful to shareholders for making valuable suggestion. I can assure you all your suggestion will be seriously considered and it will be deliberated upon. Whatever needs to be corrected or implemented, we will certainly do it. With that, since e-voting is mandatory and this company has already made the said facility available to the members for all the resolutions being transacted in this AGM, there is no requirement for members to propose or seconding each resolution. Having replied to the question of shareholder, I request shareholders have already asked questions. Now, Swami or Balu, if you have to say anything further. No?
I just want to thank everybody for participating in the meeting, and I'm glad we have an active shareholder population within the company. Every suggestion. You know, a shareholder who's a customer is invaluable. In fact, the nature of our business is such that every shareholder is a customer, and every customer can be a shareholder. Thank you very much for participating. Vinodji, the floor is yours.
Okay. I request the shareholder who have not already voted to exercise their voting rights using e-voting platform of NSDL. The e-voting module of NSDL will be open till 15 minutes after the conclusion of the meeting. I thank all for attending the meeting, for your active support and participation. Thank you. Jai Hind.