Fresh off its acquisition by global digital assets enterprise Bullish, global transfer agent Equiniti is exploring getting into the tokenised assets space in India as Indian regulators signal openness. Equiniti serves about 55 per cent of FTSE 100 firms in the UK and 35 per cent of S&P 500 companies in the US, and its global operations and tech centre is based out of Chennai and Bengaluru. While automation slows headcount growth, Dan Kramer, CEO, Equiniti, tells businessline that India teams are building critical global products and more work will continue to happen here. Kramer has over 30 years’ experience across financial services organisations like Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan and BNY.
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How large is Equiniti’s business today?
We keep the record of ownership for 3,000 public companies. We have, in the UK, about 55 per cent of the FTSE 100 listed companies as clients and in the US, about 35 per cent of the S&P 500. We are number two in the US, number one in the UK. Besides shareholder services, we also have a share plan business, and a business called Notified, which is about community investor relations and public relations.
Tell us about the India footprint for Equiniti.
India has been the operations and technology center for us. We’ve grown from a few hundred people [in 2014-15] to 2,600 people today. This is also a hub for our finance services and HR teams. Pretty much every function in the company has a presence here in India. We have members of our global leadership team here in India, and as we increase automation, a lot of that work is being led here in India. We began our presence in Chennai 10 years ago and expanded to Bangalore, and then with the acquisition of Notified recently we also gained a site in Nagercoil.
Equiniti itself recently got acquired by Bullish? How does that change the work here in India?
With more digitisation, there’s now a trend to move towards tokenisation of assets in general, and specifically of equities. This led Bullish, which is the largest crypto exchange and digital assets platform, to own and partner with transfer agent. We will be closing the transaction sometime at the end of this year or early next year. We have already started to work with our issuer clients to begin tokenising their shareholder registers. We now have seven customers in the US who have either started to or agreed to tokenise their register, including Bullish itself. A good portion of that work is happening here in India.
Tokenisation has been seen positively by Indian regulators. So, with the Bullish association, will you do commercial business in India?
Hundred per cent. We’re looking at opportunities to enter the tokenised equity market in India. We have the capabilities and expertise within Bullish to tokenise assets beyond just equities. As an example, we think real estate in India is ripe for tokenisation. Over the next year or two, we’re going to start looking at all assets in India, not just equities. As you know, the regulatory framework is being developed, but it’s not there yet, but the regulators have indicated that they’re moving in that direction.
Given the levels of business automation, will India teams grow?
As we start partnering with Bullish, we’ll be moving more and more work here. But given the automation initiatives and everything else going on, we won’t be growing at the same pace as we have for the last 10 years. We’ll be growing, but not at that same pace. Everybody is getting more efficient and more effective. So, the future here in India may not be about adding more people, but it will still be about doing more work. We now have about 43 per cent of the entire company workforce in India.
What are some key global work for Equiniti happening out of India?
Today, customers care more about how we ingest and distribute their data. If you are querying us, you don’t have to go into a website or app or fill out a form. You should be able to just ask a question and get an answer- that’s how we’re building our systems. This is being made possible by a product called EQ1, which we just launched a week ago and is going to be rolled out globally over the next year, and is being built here in India. In case of operational efficiencies, automating internal processes and rolling out our RPAs [Robotic Process Automations] is also being developed here [in India].
With more digitisation, there’s now a trend to move towards tokenisation of assets in general, and specifically of equities.Dan Kramer,CEO, Equiniti