Max Financial Services Ltd (NSE: MFSL) Q1 2026 Earnings Call dated Aug. 08, 2025
Corporate Participants:
Unidentified Speaker
Amrit Singh — Chief Financial Officer
Amrit Singh — Chief Financial Officer
Prashant Tripathy — Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer
Sumit Madan — Chief Distribution Officer of Axis Max Life Insurance
Nishant Kumar — Chief Financial Officer
Nishant Kumar — Chief Financial Officer
Analysts:
Unidentified Participant
Shreya Shivani — Analyst
Swarnabh Mukherjee — Analyst
Avinash Singh — Analyst
Supratim Datta — Analyst
Prayesh Jain — Analyst
Madhukar Ladha — Analyst
Mohit Mangal — Analyst
Neeraj Toshniwal — Analyst
Presentation:
operator
Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Max Financial Services Limited Q4FY26 earnings conference call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen only mode. And there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during this conference call, operator, by pressing start and zero on your touchstone phone, please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Amrit Singh from Max Financial Services Limited. Thank you. And over to you, sir.
Amrit Singh — Chief Financial Officer
Morning everyone. Thank you for joining our call today morning for results June 2025. We had provided our presentations on the websites and also on the exchange last evening. As always, joining me today are Mr. Vishante Pati, Managing Director and CEO of Axis Max Life Insurance, Sumit Madan, Chief Distribution Officer of Access Max Life Insurance and Nishant Kumar, CFO of mfsl. I would first invite Kashant to just walk us through the developments of the portal.
Prashant Tripathy — Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Amre. Good morning everyone. I’m very happy to share that following a remarkable financial year 25, we have carried forward our strong growth momentum into quarter one of FY26. Also delivering healthy growth while balancing the needs of our customers, partners, shareholders and employees. Let me first begin by sharing a great news that we at Axsmax Life Insurance are very proud of. And that is our ranking in the great place to work in Institute rating methodology that happened for 2025. There were several accolades that came our way. Number one and most importantly ranked number 28among top 100 best companies to work for.
And about 2,400 companies of India participated in that survey. We also featured in Top 50 India’s Best Workplaces. Building a culture of innovation by all and also ranked among the top 25 best workplaces in BFSI 2025. Very happy to share that. For all the last six or seven years that we have participated in that survey, we have ranked amongst top 50 and we are also a laureate which means more than 10 years being amongst top hundred great places to work. Our people continue to be the heart of everything that we do. And these recognitions are a testament to the culture we have built together.
A culture of trust, innovation and commitment with that let me walk you through the key developments across all our strategic focus areas during this quarter. First and foremost, sustainable predictable growth. In quarter one FY26 our individual adjusted first year premium grew by 23% which is nearly three times that of the private sector growth of 8%, more than four times the overall industry growth of 5%. Additionally, on a two year CAGR basis we delivered a robust 25% growth, significantly ahead of the 16% CAGR for private sector and more than twice the industry growth rate of 12%.
In terms of APE which is annualized premium equivalent, we grew at 15% in quarter one FY26 driven by both PROP as well as banker channels. Our PROP channels have consistently served the pillar of our strong growth over an extended period. On a three year basis these channels have demonstrated APE growth of 32% with online channel putting a three year CAGR of 63% and offline channels at 24%. Continuing this trajectory in the quarter as well, our offline proprietary channels delivered a strong 18% ape. We continue to maintain leadership in online space despite online APE remaining flattish and that’s the reason you see a Delta between the 23 and 15.
This is owing to a large base of ULIP sales in last year which also caused divergence in growth rates of APE and adjusted fyp. We have done a review of how this delta will be for the coming quarters and I must share that it’s going to plateau and I don’t expect a delta of more than 2 to 4% between the adjusted FYP and AP numbers going forward. Our bank assurance channel AP also grew by strong 16% in quarter one, driven by consistent performance across partner banks and supported by the ramp up of new relationships established over the last two years.
The Axis bank grew at 11%. Other banker partners collectively grew by a massive 54%. This was a result of new bank relationships that we signed up over last couple of years. Continuing this journey, we added 15 new partners across retail and group channels during quarter one FY26 to further strengthen our distribution networks coming to the products where innovation is our endeavor all the time to drive margins. Axis Matchlab remains deeply committed to leading in product innovation with a clear focus on creating value for all stakeholders including customers, employees, partners, investors and community. In this quarter we launched another innovative flagship product called Smart Vibe offering instant income in the first year policy the first policy year.
Key features include enhanced protection through riders and policy continuance benefit and accumulation of survival benefit and premium offset. This launch has helped us rebalance our product mix, reducing the share of ULIPs from 43% in quarter one last year to 36% this quarter. Additionally, our rider APE has surged by over 300%, contributing positively to a 36% growth in the protection segment. Our pure protection portfolio also recorded a healthy growth of 26%. Annuities and other strategic focus areas grew by 40%, further strengthening our diversified product portfolio. These developments have not only aligned with our stated strategy of maintaining a balanced product mix, but have also led a margin expansion from 17.5% margin quarter one FY25 to 20.1 in quarter one FY26, resulting in an impressive 32% growth in value of new business.
Thus, for quarter one performance, our quarter one performance gives us reasonable confidence, or I should say maybe good confidence to maintain our margin guidance of 24% to 25% for FY26. As we continue to invest in our distribution channels focusing on some of the customer outcomes, we are pleased to share that Axis Max Life achieved its highest ever individual death claim grade ratio of 99.5% in FY25, a powerful testament to the deep trust our customers place in us and our unwavering commitment to honoring that trust when it matters the most. We continue to lead the industry in 1320 on a number of policy basis as per FY25 rankings and hold the 2nd position in both FY both 25th month and 37th month for stency on the same basis.
In terms of premium, 13th month persistency stood at 86% compared to 87% in quarter one last year while 25th month persistency has achieved or reached its all time high at 75% reflecting a year on year improvement of close to 500 basis points. Our NPS score net Promoter score where we just transitioned from a manual means to a digital means remains strong at 54 up from a baseline of 52 on an Apple to Apple basis at FY25 exit touchpoint NPS improved by 2 points from 55 to 57 and relationship NPS remained at par indicating strong customer sentiments and effectiveness of our engagement strategies.
We’ve also made notable progress in grievance resolution with grievance incidence rates GIR improving to 44 in Quarter 1 FY26 down from 55 in Quarter 1 of FY25. These consistent improvements across customer trust, retention and service excellence reinforce our strategic focus on long term value creation and sustainable growth. In addition, I’m very happy to share with you that consistent with the hypothesis that we had made while rebranding ourselves from Max Life to Access Max Life, we have seen significant improvement in our scores on consideration. Before this exercise was undertaken last year we had a consideration score of 78 which has jumped up to 83 and we are also witnessing very good momentum especially in tier 2 tier 3 cities and I’m very happy to share that we are able to sustain those scores.
So with respect to competition, I think our overall positioning has strengthened as a result of the rebranding exercise that we undertook end of last year. Digitization is another focus area for us and our ongoing digital journey continues to drive operational excellence, customer satisfaction and scalable innovation across enterprise. We recently launched the Axis Max Life App, a fully in house developed digital platform that integrates life insurance servicing with wellness benefits. An industry first in the life insurance space. Available In Android and iOS, the app offers seamless policy management, premium payments, online purchases and AI powered chatbots for both insurance and wellness support.
Built on a modern tech stack, the app is deeply embedded in our ecosystem to enable real time engagement and analytics. We also expect App Engaged customers to show higher relationship NPS and persistency, while increased DIY servicing will drive meaningful long term cost savings to all the people who are on the call and happen to be our customers. I sincerely urge that you download our app and be our App engaged customers. In Q1 we successfully completed an enterprise wide brand refresh, aligning all Digital assets including B2B platforms, HR systems and communication tools and our renewed brand identity.
This includes a domain and email overhaul, reinforcing consistency and trust across stakeholders. Touch points. We also implemented several key interventions to streamline policy issuance and strengthen risk management during onboarding. Notably, EKYC adoption increase from 35% to 70%, significantly reducing manual efforts and improving turnaround times. Additionally, we enabled the final payment journey with basba, ensuring full compliance with PPHI guidelines. On the servicing front, we launched a Genai powered email bot which is expected to automate 30% of the customer service volumes and enable 20% headcount optimization, enhancing both efficiency and scalability. Collectively, these initiatives have significantly strengthened Axis naturalized digital backbone, enhancing operational efficiency, elevating customer employee satisfaction and reinforcing our competitive advantage in the market.
To summarize, we have had a strong start of the year with solid performance across all key metrics. While global geopolitical development continue to shape market dynamics, we remain confident that in our ability to deliver on our guidance and drive sustained value to all our stakeholders. On a separate note, as you may be aware, I’m going to step down from my current role of managing director and CEO on the 30th of September and I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for all your support, all your engagement, friendship with most of you and communication during my career here as CFO and CEO.
Access Max Life Insurance has always believed in distributed leadership which is a unique thing about our organization. And as I hand over the button to Sumit Madan, our Chief Distribution Officer who takes over as MD and CEO of this company from the 1st of October and he’s also there on the call, I am very confident that the momentum that we have built, the strength that we have shown, the remarkable progress that we have made across all the strategic vectors highlighted, and our ability to meet quarter on quarter, month on month commitments will only get enhanced.
So I will look forward to your support and let’s give our best wishes to Sumit in his new role. You will hear from him as we go along but let me pass it back to you Amrit for the financial numbers.
Amrit Singh — Chief Financial Officer
Thank you Vishant Just Quick Hygiene Financial Metrics MFSL revenue excluding investment income stands at 6,194 crores which is a growth of 18% in the first quarter. Consolidated profit after tax stands at 86 crores, largely impacted due to strains because of a strong new business sales momentum. Gross written premium for Access Max life grew by 18% and more importantly Renewal premium also demonstrated a healthy growth of 17% standing at 3873 crores. As Prashant mentioned, VNB which is a measure of profitability for our industry stands at 335 crores for first quarter FY26 a growth of 32%. NBM expanded from 17.5% in last year quarter one to 20.1% for this particular quarter.
Embedded value end of June stands at 26,478 crore a growth of 20%. Analyze operating ROEV a measure of performance stands at 14.3% again an expansion from 14.2% demonstrated last year. Policyholder OPEX with GWP is 17.8. Policyholder OPEX has grown by 18%. Overall assets under management for Accessmax Life now stands at 1.83 lakh crores which is a growth of 14%. With that we’ll open the floor for questions and I’ll request the moderator to open it.
Questions and Answers:
operator
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the touchdown telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, give me press and 2. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Shreya Shivani from clsa. Please go ahead.
Shreya Shivani
Hi, good morning. Thank you for the opportunity and congratulations on a great set of numbers. I have three questions. My first question is just for the clarity for the coming months, can you also explain why the monthly numbers are distorted? I know that you sold a lot of these monthly module products. So which of the line item is where the number in our monthly the life insurance council data. The number is getting wrongly represented and that’s why we guys when we calculate the AP it comes out much higher at 20, 25%. Whatever. And how long will this continue? Or should we expect a 2 to 4 percentage point differ as you had mentioned for the rest of the months for this year? That’s my first question.
My second question is on the agency channel. So you’ve done a great job in the last two years with the agent addition. Though with new agents coming on board, the agent productivity for your entire book had sort of declined. So what is usually the time frame in which your agents can agent productivity can recover because you’ve always had one of the best agent productivity on street. And my last question is again this is very media article media but any update on insurance bill? Are you hearing anything negative about the clause which allows for merger between insurance and non insurance company? There was even media speculation which said that Access bank wants to raise stake.
I mean any clarification over there would be quite useful. Those are my three questions. Thank you.
Amrit Singh
So Shreya, thanks. Thanks for these questions. I’ll take the first one which is the AFI PIN AP numbers. And firstly let me just correct you that the monthly numbers published are not wrong. Those monthly numbers which are publishing are accurate. It is just that those monthly numbers are on a FIP basis. Whereas the overall financial reporting in addition to FIP basis we do also share APE basis analyzed premium equivalents. The difference between both the method is in an analyzed premium equivalent you kind of recognize the entire premium of a policy of the first 12 months in the first instance itself.
Whereas in the FIP it is actually basically the collection that is received on a month to month basis. Now the market intelligence number, the life Council number that you see are basis monthly collections. AP is an additional measure which companies disclose quarterly which is what we have also disclosed. Where is it coming from this gap and this difference? It will always come from a channel which is heavy on monthly modes and no prices for guessing that actually is an e commerce channel where the consumers prefer to pay on a monthly basis. So the gap has come because of the fact that overall the online business, especially on the savings side has seen a moderation in momentum largely due to the volatility in markets which have impacted a little bit of ULEF demands during the quarter and that’s why the mobilization of AP in E commerce is slower.
But beyond this actually there is hardly any difference in any of the channels between both these numbers going forward that Prasant mentioned. We do expect this gap to narrow. We are looking more at 2 or 3% gap still existing, but the gap will definitely narrow.
Sumit Madan
I take the second question on your point around agent productivity. I think one our proprietorship business largely led by agency remains very strong and the same has been disclosed as part of the numbers. Also there have been a number of. Measures taken into that account. But to answer your specific question Shreya, in fact our overall productivity has actually. Gone up by 4% over quarter one of last year. The difference is that normally when we. Track the productivity it’s tracked, this is. The MTD active numbers rather than the. Total numbers which is more of a base impact. So if you look at the productivity of the active agents over last quarter to this quarter, it’s actually an increase of almost 4%.
Prashant Tripathy
Coming to your question, it’s Prashant on Insurance bill. Yes, I also read some of these media articles and you know of course one got one engaged with stakeholders in this space to figure out what is going to change the insurance bills. The latest update as far as we know is that the bill is ready to be presented in the Parliament. We just need to wait until it goes through. In all likelihood it will be picked up in the forthcoming Parliament session.
May not happen this time around but there is no change as far as Section 35 provision is concerned. I think it will be allowed a non life insurance company might merge or may be allowed to merge with a life insurance company with a prior approval from irdi. In our case, as you know the company that we want to merge with is just an operating company. It has no it is not an operating company, it is just a holding company. It has no operating, you know, balance sheet. So we don’t foresee any problems as far as insurance bill is concerned.
Our information actually suggests that, you know, we are awaiting the approval of the bill and after that we will be okay. As far as your other point around, you know, raising the equity by the bank, etc. I think we are yet to hear anything on that ground. So it may be just market speculation and there is no point talking about that.
Shreya Shivani
Got it, Got it. These are very useful. Thank you so much for answering all the questions. And Prashant, sir, for you, all the best for your future endeavors. Thank you for all the support that you’ve given to us over these years. Thank you so much.
Prashant Tripathy
Thanks.
operator
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, in order to ensure that the management is able to answer questions from all participants in the conference, please limit your questions to two per participation relevant. The next question is from the line of Swarna Mukherjee from BNK Securities. Please go ahead.
Swarnabh Mukherjee
Good morning and congrats on a great set of numbers. Two questions. First, the margins. Just wanted to understand.
operator
May I request you to use a headset while asking a question?
Swarnabh Mukherjee
Yeah. Is this better now?
operator
Yes. Please go ahead with your question.
Swarnabh Mukherjee
Yeah, sure. So in terms of the margin, wanted to understand whether there is any impact on of the surrender value.
Prashant Tripathy
You had a second question as well. So if you. Why don’t you complete the second and then I’ll answer both.
Swarnabh Mukherjee
This is point. Yeah. Hear me now. Is it better?
Prashant Tripathy
Yeah.
Swarnabh Mukherjee
Yeah. So I think, sir, that there is a 260 basis points kind of expansion in the margin profile from last year to this year. I just wanted to understand, are we being in terms of maintaining our guidance or should do expect that, you know, given that this has come from good product mix alterations, do we expect that in upcoming the, you know, the quantum of expansion can be not at this level. I just wanted to understand that on the margins part and also I can squeeze in a little bit on the product side. So. I think we have done very well over the last few years. But right now, I think at least on a basis, we are in the largest in the private, at least among the listed players. So what is the headroom there in the near term, if you could have out of that? Yeah, this is my question, sir.
Sumit Madan
So I didn’t get your third question actually very clearly, but let me answer the first two that you asked. So as we have been kind of highlighting subsequent to surrender actions, we took actions on multiple fronts. And now it is, you know, almost impossibilities are at end to kind of just segregate surrender impact and try to indicate we have mitigated most of the surrender impact and this is actually in traditional categories and also leveraging other categories with respect to getting the pricing actions taken on those categories as well. For this particular quarter, product mix has actually aided.
As you can see. This was a quarter we did launch a very strong non participating savings product which saw strong acceptance that gated in addition to it all the actions taken post the 1st of October which actually in the run rate have continued which are around pricing actions and rider contributions etc. Continues to aid the margin expansion process. With respect to full year guidance we have been reiterating I think we would like to remain in this healthy range of margins which is between 24, 25%. If we see margins actually running up ahead of that, we will be very keen on drawing that back into the business for growth purposes and building distribution.
And that’s the mindset with which we are approaching this business. So I will advise that we stick to the same guidance that we have indicated rather than building further expansion there the last question unfortunately I couldn’t hear so I’m unable to answer it. If it is around protection that we have been doing well in protection and how do we see it forward? We continue to be very excited about the protection opportunity. India as you are all aware with respect to some assured penetrations is severely under penetrated. We definitely do expect given our focus in this category, not just in sourcing but also overall underwriting process etc.
We would like to continue main engaged in this category and do better than the market. We see no reasons any of that actually altering at this point. Sure sir, very helpful.
Swarnabh Mukherjee
Thank you so much and all the rest.
operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Avinash Singh from MK Global. Please go ahead.
Avinash Singh
Yeah, good morning. Thanks for the opportunity for your future endeavors and congratulations to Sumit. You have resolved most of the issues related particularly the non operating issue that the company. So of course expectation is going to be high performance as well. Two questions. The first one is going to be. In terms of you know your product mix not so much in margin. So now I mean you are back to kind of where typically you want it to be. ULIP and non ULIP mix. Is this trend going to continue for rest of the year or I mean if at all market environment turns conducive you would be okay to increase your lips. So that’s an awesome product mix. The second one more again a bit I would say fundamentally I can see but yet I want your answer again time and again sometimes media news just news comes around some, you know some of your promoter or yeah increasing or increasing capital.
But when I see I mean your solvency now Even close to 200% and reasonable I would say back to profit generation in that case. I mean given that typically or 180% is the comfortable solvency than what you would like to be. Do you really see any need of external capital for next two, three years. Even if assuming the growth accelerates? Thank you.
Sumit Madan
Firstly first question on product mix avinary I think yes the product mix is very balanced but having said if the market opportunity presents us to and drive higher momentums leveraging ulep which is actually a great product from a consumer perspective as well. And also now with the design variance enhancements where even a unit link designs is actually offering healthy protection components, we will in a calibrated manner always keep looking at these opportunities. But overall, again reiterating, I think we like to keep the product mix balanced between and very carefully balancing that between proprietary and non proprietary with an overall objective our margins remain range bound.
I think on the second one, yes your observation is right. Our solvency at the end of this quarter stands at 199%. But given this business consumes capital due to the product that we are selling and the growth momentum that we are demonstrating, we do expect over a medium to long horizon some capital emergence happening. Some part of that we will fulfill through the debt capacity that we have at our end. But I think we will never starve the business from a growth capital requirement perspective and we are quite confident that our shareholders will also be more than happy to contribute if required for providing and aiding the growth capital in the business.
Avinash Singh
Thank you.
operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Suprathin from Ambit Capital. Please go ahead.
Supratim Datta
Thanks for the opportunity. My first question is on the product and banker channel. So could you help us understand how much has Smart Pipe contributed to nonpar savings ape this quarter? And when I look at the bank card channel there has, you know similar to the overall group level there has been a shift towards protection and nonpar but given this channel has typically shown a greater proclivity towards selling ulips Just wanted to understand is there a strategic shift that has happened as well here towards selling more non par and protection along with the new product? And finally my last question is on the back book surplus and new business strain.
The new business strain versus last quarter has grown fairly significantly. Is this only driven by product level changes or is there something else there as well? If you could help us understand that. Thank you.
Sumit Madan
Thanks Upritin. I will not specifically comment on a specific product number but needless to say whenever new product is launched it does end up being over 50% of the category contribution given the excitement that it provides to the field and the distribution teams and that’s the kind of success that we have seen even in smartwide. Specifically coming to your comments around the overall ULEP mix within our banks, some part is market driven and some part is also intentional as we have been mentioning that we would definitely working along with banks and especially our promoter bank try to balance the product mix towards more optimal levels.
And that is what I think the efforts have been. And very interestingly actually at Axis bank the number of policy growth has been very robust. We have grown over 20% at the bank. So a shift away from Ulips which can sometimes affect the overall top line growth because of the case size being higher. Those have been compensated by overall higher degree of activity within the bank. So just a short answer. I think it’s a mix of both the market plus also some conscious efforts of balancing the overall mix within the channel. Lastly, your observation on new business train is correct.
It is product driven, it is the higher proportion of nonpar and especially in a quarter where we don’t necessarily get this equivalent operating leverage advantage because it’s a smaller quarter from a sales perspective the strain has been higher because of this particular product category becoming larger in the mix for the quarter.
Supratim Datta
Thanks Ambit. Just one question. If I could squeeze in the other banker channel which is now close to around 20% of your overall contribution, how much further room is there for this channel to expand? It has been growing fairly at a fast clip. So just wanted to understand how should we think about this channel.
Sumit Madan
I think Suprathim Sumit decided we are actually very excited about the other banks because some of the recent growth we’ve seen in recent acquisition also very fast. We’Ve been able to get the counter share that we really desire. In some of the newer acquisition for. Example we actually become a number one player in terms of counter share also. So I think our growth progress and. The entire opportunity it provides we are. Actually very bullish about some of the other banks.
Supratim Datta
Thanks a lot Sumit and all the best for your new role and all the best Prashant as well for your next.
Sumit Madan
Thank you so much.
operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of prayer Shain from Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead.
Prayesh Jain
Yeah. Hi. First question is on the product level margins whether they are they have improved with rider attachments or with respect to even ulips whether the sum assured has been going up so whether the product level margin has improved and your kind of product mix movement towards nonpar has been the rates in the industry have these been aggressive and are we Getting some impact of being aggressive in margins being lower on nonpar relatively. So, you know, so that’s my first question. Second question is on the persistency on the near month, 13 month persistency, there’s some marginal weakness.
Is there anything to read into it? Yeah, those would be a good question. Thanks.
Sumit Madan
So pri. Thanks for these questions. If you compare from last previous year’s same quarter in certain categories there is an improvement in margins. In certain categories there has been subsequent weakness in margin because of the overall design structure changing in certain product forms. But I will not get into the specifics of each of the segment but I think all the elements that you spoke of, whether it is rider attachment, whether it is repricing of certain products has definitely aided the margin expansions for us in non participating it was, we have always been indicating, yes, it was impacted by the change in design structure, the surrender regulations.
That impact obviously you will see in this particular quarter it is not there sequentially but as if you compare this quarter with last year you will definitely see that impact. But overall I think it’s a situation of you kind of gained some places and you kind of lost some places. But overall we have been able to enhance the margin profiles on 13 month. We also have experienced some bit of a weakness though with the collection efforts. As the year has kind of progressed and we have been into three, four months of the financial year, we have also seen an improvement happening but there is some bit of pressure which is evident on the 13 months.
So we have continued to do well with respect to our improvements in the later cohorts. Where you can see other cohorts there has been an improvement coming through but we are also closely observing this particular trend and making all efforts to ensure that the persistency outcome remains strong. Some bit of it could be an overall economic effect on the Indian consumers. Some bit of it is also the proportion of high ticket sizes have reduced as time has kind of gone by. These have actually had also had bearing on the persistency numbers.
Prayesh Jain
Do we expect some persistency variance coming in terms of EV walk or negative variance coming in the EV walk towards the end of the year?
Sumit Madan
As we stand today and as we have reported our numbers, we have not seen anything like that because again there has been positives and negative which have come both in later cohorts. But we’re keeping a close eye. There are adequate buffers or conservatism which is built into some of the new designs that we have rolled out ever since the change of regulations.
Prayesh Jain
Got that. And all the best sumit for your future role. And Prashant sir, all the best to you for a future end devices.
Sumit Madan
Well, thank you so much.
Prayesh Jain
Thank you. Thank you.
operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Madhukar Ladha from Nirvama Wealth Management. Please go ahead.
Madhukar Ladha
Morning everyone. First, you know, congratulations on it. And all the best to Prashant sir for your future endeavors. So most of my questions have been. Answered but just a couple of things. Number one on ev, what is the. Extent of positive economic variance? And number two, on the Axis bank. Buying the additional 1% in Max Life. So where are we in that process? Yeah, those would be my two questions. That’s it. Thanks.
Amrit Singh
Thanks. On non operating variance we have had a positive number of around 431 crores. This is aided because of interest rate softening which has led to positives on the debt side and also certain positives on the equity side. On the second question
Sumit Madan
on the 1%. Yes, the discussion, I mean that’s something Axis bank is pursuing with rbi. And as soon as that approval comes through, you know Axis bank will be doing either primary or secondary industry. We are awaiting an approval.
Madhukar Ladha
Got it, Got it. Okay. Thank you. All the best.
operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of the Panjan Ghosh from Citigroup. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Hi sir. Good evening. So just few questions from my side. First you know if I look at the protection number and you mentioned that your protection has grown by 26%. Say if you assume like 10% of riders in the base of your overall protection and you know that has obviously grown at like 300% plus. You know, just wanted to get is it some t growth in the health segment? I mean just wanted to triangulate the numbers within the protection segment. Second, your protection growth for the bank has been quite strong for the last two or three quarters.
So just want to get some sense or color in terms of what are the strategies on that channel. And the last question is in terms of the EV work, it seems there has been a decent operating release during the quarter. So what would be the drivers for that?
Amrit Singh
So let me take some of these questions actually. So actually your observation is correct. With respect to protection. As Prashant mentioned, the core protection growth has been 26%. And as you kind of recalibrating or re numbers, there has been a degrowth in the health product largely actually post the changes to product regulations on 1st October, because of the regulatory changes there were certain weaknesses which came in the overall construct from a consumer perspective in this product. And that’s actually led to some bit of a weakness in this health fixed benefit plan that we had kind of launched.
We continue to keep looking for innovative ways and mechanisms of improving the health product. But as things stand today, there has been, you know, small degrowth in this particular segment. Whereas on riders, I think it’s not just, you know, riders on protection, but it is riders on unit link designs, rider on non pass saving designs, even rider on par. These are all ingrained as part of our conversation because effectively this helps enhance the summer show of the product which continues to be an important need from a consumer’s perspective. And that journey will continue. And it’s an evolution.
Industry is kind of evolving to some of these trends that actually are very, you know, very known trends, at least in the Southeast Asian market. But for, at least for our country, rider which is augmenting some ashore is becoming a very critical conversations and being accepted by the consumer. On banks, it’s an overall, I think if you really look at all the segments of choices, whether it is protection, annuity, traditional product, there has been a positive lift. It’s an element of focus which actually we have also brought along in very close alignment with our bank partners.
And we do expect that we will continue holding on to these momentaries. On operating variance, I think you must have used some competitions around assumptions around unwind and VND growth to kind of come to a largest operating variance number. But I’ll just correct you that the unwind from 8.4 has come off to 8.3. So there is a positive operating variance but it is not of a very large quantum. It’s more like a double digit.
Unidentified Participant
Thank you. And just one data keeping question. If you can split your offline AP breakup between direct and agency.
Amrit Singh
Sorry, what? What was that question?
Unidentified Participant
I asked that if you can split your offline ape.
Amrit Singh
I will provide that to you separately. I just don’t have it handy right away.
Unidentified Participant
Got it. Thank you everyone and all the.
operator
Thank you. Before we take the next question, we would like to remind participants that you may press Star and one to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Mohit Mangal from Centrum. Please go ahead.
Mohit Mangal
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. Am I audible?
Prashant Tripathy
Very audible,
Mohit Mangal
yeah. First of all. Yeah, first of all, you know, I mean congratulations to Sumit sir for the new role. And. There were two questions. First is this that you know, have you done any repricing in the protection segment? Also wanted to understand what is the proportion of ROP in the protection business. Secondly, we have seen the proprietary Channel growth has been low, you know like. Compare with say 25 annual numbers. So two things in this what do. You think the proportion of the app. That you launch will help in this in the growth as well as what are the strategies in growing this portrait? If you could just elaborate that would be. Thank you.
Amrit Singh
So firstly on protection repricing, you know it is the answer is yes and protection repricing at various segment cohorts wherever the opportunity kind of allows you to do it in a calibrated manner keeping competition and demand. We keep doing it and we have done so even this as well. And this is nothing new. The even in the previous quarters I can say quarter three, quarter four, quarter one each of these quarters wherever the opportunity in the segment opens up, we continue to keep repricing it on rop. Actually there is a big opportunity to improve here.
Our return of premium actually has come down to more like 10% levels. We do expect as we know drive focus in our own channels. This mix should improve. Quarter one is a small quarter so I guess it’s not like a big trend that you should see. It is just that there is some opportunity available for us to expand in this particular thing on proprietary it’s going on the AP side I think I will request and I indicated at the start of the call as a response to one of the parties expense that it is largely concentrated in the specific channel which is E commerce and also on one particular line of business, savings business.
Otherwise the offline proprietary channel momentum has been quite robust, growing at 18% levels and we expect that to remain in these range bounds even going forward as well. With respect to E commerce, we are quite confident that as the year progresses through various innovative ways and strategies of product and kind of combining features of both market opportunities plus guarantees and protection component, we will come back on our growth trends in that particular segment as well. The app at this point in time is more an app for engagement with the consumers and kind of building right now our use case thinking and thought process.
There is more around enabling strong customer service and if you take a life cycle view of it, a better engaged consumer will definitely provide us opportunity for new sales also going forward so as to drive our policy density and penetration. But these are just early days. I think right now we are only focused on ensuring that the app is meaningful to the consumer and the consumer continues to engage on multiple aspects of the app. The app as Prashant mentioned has fairly feature rich features, actually provides a lot of health and associated services which has been actually made enabled to all our consumers for any charge to them and we’re hoping that this engagement will further which initially should see better outcomes on both persistency and also the customer service cost that the organization actually incurs upsell.
Definitely a use case but I think you have to be patient and to take very long horizon views of overall lifetime value of consumers. We do expect that to pan out but nothing that I can comment comment on the near term on that.
Mohit Mangal
Understood. But thanks and wish you all the best.
Amrit Singh
Thank you.
operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Neeraj Toshnival from ubs. Please go ahead.
Neeraj Toshniwal
Hi, my question is again on persistency. You wanted to check which particular channel has seen kind of a slip in terms of persistency and has there been any impact of higher tickets sales which was done in March to June 2023. Which other competitions highlighted that because of that also has been lower. So are we also seeing the partial impact coming from that or it’s only all new impact Wanted to build more quality tests from India.
Sumit Madan
Yeah, thanks Neeraj for that question. This is a bit secular kind of impact across channels. So there is no specific channel that I can point out and say that sharp drop and it’s. And we’ve also seen this more on the traditional side of policies where some bit of collection has been a little slow to start with. But having said as every month is progressing we are actually also seeing improvements in collection trends overall. With respect to Your comment around March 23rd base I think I did answer that question more possibly indirectly that the proportion of greater than 5 lakh ticket size definitely has reduced in the business and that actually has you know Those greater than 5 lakh always used to be higher policy.
So some bit of effect is also because of that.
Neeraj Toshniwal
Got it. And if you can refresh the memory on where is the wallet share in Access bank right now and.
Sumit Madan
It continues to be in that range bound of 65 to 70% level. So yeah.
Neeraj Toshniwal
Thank you so much.
operator
Thank you ladies and gentlemen. That was the last question for the day and I would now like to hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
Amrit Singh
Thank you everyone for being on our call and we look forward to more such interactions. Have a good day in the nice weekend as well.
operator
Thank you on behalf of Max Financial Services Ltd. That concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us and you may now disconnect your lines.