• June 2020 broking revenue was the highest in history with a 42% month-on-month growth
• 25,000 new accounts opened in June
• 1,37,036 customers reactivated since September 2019
• Business campaigns Sona Chandi and Reach for 100 Stars rolled out
• ShareKonnect – our new HRMS -- launched for all staff
• Trailing-12 month active clients at almost an all-time high of 5.63 lakh

It has been more than 100 days that we have been in the lockdown. We have been gradually opening up with 80 locations allowing the minimum critical staff to operate from the branches. With Mumbai witnessing a major spike in COVID-19 cases, we have been allowing only the very critical staff to work from the head offices. As most states have extended the lockdown till July 31, 2020, we will have to wait and watch, and then decide on further unlocking. According to the World Health Organisation, the pandemic has yet to reach its peak. Therefore, I urge you all to continue to adhere to the lockdown rules and help the government fight the COVID-19 crisis. In the meantime, the past few weeks have been eventful for Sharekhan, evidently we have pretty much adjusted to the lockdown normal and been running business as usual. More importantly, it proves we are stronger than we think.

Our broking business is going great guns and breaking records. In June on the back of a favourable stock market, and a more zealous effort by the entire branch network and the supporting teams, the broking revenues grew by a whopping 42%. This was the highest ever in the history of Sharekhan, a new record for us.

That is not all, we also opened nearly 25,000 new accounts in the same month as against 17,000 new accounts in May this year. After a drop in April, the number of new accounts increased steadily in May and June. This can be attributed to three reasons. One, the Relationship Managers (RMs) and Customer Relationship Executives (CREs) switched to the online client acquisition process once they started to work from home in May due to the lockdown. The faster process saved their time, which, I am happy to note, was used to convert more leads to customers. Two, our Business Partners also contributed significantly to both revenue and new accounts. Three, the account opening incentive for June was definitely sharper. Interestingly, 48-50% of the new customers are getting activated within 30 days of opening an account. The stock market remains favourable and we should aim to improve the 30-day activation number to 70%.

Our customer reactivation efforts are also praiseworthy. So far about 1.37 lakh customers have been reactivated since we launched the Front Foot Programme in September last year and these customers are also contributing to the revenue kitty. Specifically in the last three months, despite the lockdown the network has worked very hard to benefit from the opportunities in the market. The reactivation story is truly a cross-functional effort of the branch network and the acquisition teams with the central network management, Advisory, Research, Brand & Communications and CRM & Analytics teams supporting them by telling them what to pitch, how to pitch, whom to prioritise and more. Consequently, we are now reactivating at a rate of ~650 per day. What’s more, we have also managed to almost reclaim our all-time high on the trailing-12 month active clients number of around 5.63 lakh.

I congratulate the RMs, CREs, the Sales staff and the Business Partners for the milestones. These Sherus were obviously well supported by the entire Sharekhan team including the branch managers, cluster heads, and the Operations, Risk, Compliance, Research, Advisory, Network Management, Franchisee Acquisition, Franchisee Service, IT, Product Development, CRM & Analytics, Marketing, Branding & Communications, Human Resources, and Internal Communications teams, and I appreciate the team work. Together we have achieved some great milestones in tough times. Couldn’t have found a better example of that popular adage about how the tough get going when the going gets tough. Let us pause for a moment to savour the achievements.

The mutual fund distribution business too is holding up well in the lockdown. This year, after seeing an outflow of Rs.113 crore in March, the net sales gradually improved and reached a high of Rs.72 crore in June. Due to a decline in redemptions and an improvement in the gross collection, the net collection market share has also been showing a positive trend in the last few months. To maintain this momentum, we launched a contest called “Sona Chandi” on July 1. It is a six-month contest which allows the contestants an opportunity to win physical gold and silver by helping customers achieve their financial goals through mutual funds. I wish the best to all Sherus for the contest. Make us and your family members proud by winning gold!

The Investment Products team launched the “Reach for 100 Stars” campaign on June 15. The initiative seeks to promote our flagship investment advisory (IA) product, Star Portfolio, which is an actively tracked multi-cap investment portfolio. The contest aims to create awareness and collect additional corpus of Rs.100 crore in the investment product. It is a well-balanced mix of large-cap and quality mid-cap stocks with market capitalisation of at least Rs5,000 crore. It has a proven track record and should be recommended to customers. Reach for 100 Stars is a great initiative and I wish Gaurav Dua, Mehul Koradia, Mustafa Pardiwala and the rest of the Sherus behind the campaign all the best. And of course, best of luck to all participants.

We rolled out a new human resource management system (HRMS), ShareKonnect, for Sherus on June 18. We had to discontinue the previous HRMS in 2018 due to security reasons. The new system, which goes by the same name, meets all security requirements of the company and the BNP Paribas Group. It is being launched in phases, with the Attendance, Leave and Employee Information modules going live in the first phase. The remaining modules will be introduced over the next two months. The best thing about the new system is that it is accessible to all staff, so now even the branch staff can log in to mark attendance. I also like the fact that we have more control of the software and can improve it when we want. I congratulate Rajesh Shetty and the Human Resources team for a job well done. Let us all regularly connect with ShareKonnect.

At the time of launching the IPO Online service, the IPO team had produced a video to educate customers in how to apply for an IPO online with Sharekhan using the Unified Payment Interface (UPI). The video, titled “How to create UPI ID to apply for IPO”, was released on Youtube in June 2019 and today I am glad to say that it has crossed 1.5 lakh views. Produced in-house, it was short, to the point and impactful. The concept of using UPI to apply for initial public offerings (IPOs) digitally was new to many of our traditional customers and the video was a step-by-step guide to them. Just to give you an idea, we received 68,000 valid online applications for the SBI Cards public issue in March this year -- this is the second highest number of IPO applications in our history after the 77,000 applications we received for the Reliance Power IPO in 2008. This has been possible due to the reinitiation of the online IPO bidding process through UPI. When the Applications Supported by Blocked Amount (ASBA) process had been introduced in 2016, our IPO business had taken a hit and it was months before we could reach even half of the Reliance Power application number. But all that changed after the introduction of the UPI feature in July 2019 and our numbers have been steadily growing since.

Meanwhile the popularity of the video proves three things: There is demand for well-produced educational content, such educational contents are effective and video is a popular communication medium among customers for learning new things. The video is also a good example of team work. Congratulations to Amit Arora for coming up with the idea; to Pravin Darji for leading the initiative; to Rohan Vanmala and the Video Communications team for producing the video; and to Jessica Vedak and Joby John from the Compliance team; Ankita Shetty and Anand Bharbhaya from the PDG team; Rizwan Khan, Ajay Gonade, Ajay Giri and Premkumar Lakkampelli from the IT team; Ashokraj SP, Shatish R, Senthil Kumar R, Mohan Shinde and Gaurav Shah from the Mobile team; and Chandresh Khona and Tejas Khadilkar from the Digital Assets team for making meaningful contributions to the video. Well done, Sherus! Make more such videos.

Both Sona Chandi and Reach for 100 Stars are opportunities for Shereus to convince customers about the advantages of stock investing. The lockdown may have affected customers financially due to job losses, closing of businesses or heavy medical expenses in case they have been unfortunate to have had a brush with COVID-19. Investment in the stock market is a proven way of growing money over the long term and we should encourage them to invest in order to become financially stable and plan for emergencies like COVID-19.

We can also participate in voluntary activities and utilise our Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) leave. It is not possible to carry out the standard (physical volunteering) CSR work in the lockdown. But that should not stop us from meeting our Group CSR commitments towards the 1 MillionHours2Help (1MH2H) programme. If we move to the virtual world, I am sure we will find much to do online too. The CSR Committee is actively exploring some new ideas and will soon publish some virtual initiatives for us to participate in. I urge you all to contribute in every way you can. Utilise your CSR leave in this quarter and report your contribution to the CSR team. If you also have some ideas for virtual CSR activities, share the same with the CSR team and help us build a solid virtual CSR programme for the rest of the year. Let us not restrict ourselves to work. We have a duty to the society. So let us get involved in CSR work and help the needy in whichever way we can. After all, we are fortunate to have a job and be able to carry out our duties from the safety of our home or a safe workplace.

As times remain difficult, continue to practise social distancing and take all precautions to protect yourself and your loved ones from COVID-19.

Stay safe, celebrate every milestone and have faith.

Best regards,
Jaideep Arora