Max Financial Services Ltd (NSE: MFSL) Q3 2026 Earnings Call dated Feb. 12, 2026
Corporate Participants:
Nishant Kumar — Chief Financial Officer
Sumit Madan — Chief Executive Officer
Amrit Singh — Chief Financial Officer
Analysts:
Shreya Shivani — Analyst
Avinash Singh — Analyst
Swarnabh Mukherjee — Analyst
Sucrit D Patil — Analyst
Vinod Rajamani — Analyst
Prayesh Jain — Analyst
Madhukar Ladha — Analyst
Sanket Goda — Analyst
Dipanjan Ghosh — Analyst
Presentation:
operator
Ladies and gentlemen, good morning and welcome to the Max Financial Services Limited Q3 and 9M FY26 earnings conference call. As a reminder, all participant lines will remain 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 the conference call, please signal the operator by pressing Star then zero on your touchstone telephone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I will now hand the conference over to Mr. Nishant Kumar, Chief Financial Officer of Max Financial Services Limited for opening remarks. Thank you.
And over to you, sir.
Nishant Kumar — Chief Financial Officer
Good morning everyone and thank you for joining Max Financial’s earning call for the quarter ended 12-31-25. We are pleased to present our quarter three FY26 results which are now available on our website as well as on the stock exchanges. Joining me today are Mr. Sumit Madan, Managing Director and CEO and Mr. Amrit Singh, Chief Financial Officer of Accessmax Life Insurance. With that, I would like to invite Sumit to share the key developments and performance highlights from the third quarter of financial year 26. Thank you.
Sumit Madan — Chief Executive Officer
Sure. Thank you, Nishant. Thank you very much. Good morning everyone and thank you for taking the time out.
I’ll start with a quick summary first. In quarter three, the Insurance act amendments were approved through the Sabka Bima Sabki Raksha Act 2025. These amendments of course aim to attract additional capital into the sector by increasing the FDI limit from 74 to 100%. While also enhancing ease of doing business and strengthening policyholder protection. As part of this reform, Section 35 was amended to permit the merger of an insurer with a non insurer subject to of course IIDI approval. This is a positive development for Access Max Life. Accordingly, we have received in principle approval from our board to initiate the process for the proposed amalgamation of Access Max Life and mfsl.
As we progress on the journey, we will continue to provide regular updates on the progress we are making on this moving forward. Let me now take you through the key developments across our strategic focus areas for the first nine months of FY26. To begin with, number one, sustainable and predictable growth at axis Max Life. Our strategy is to deliver consistent and broad based outcomes continuing our strong trajectory. Individual adjusted first year premium grew by 20% in nine month FY26 led by 18% growth in the number of policies. Our sales growth is twice the overall industry growth of 10% translating into a private market share expansion of 53 basis points.
Taking our share now to 9.8%. Over a longer horizon of three years, we delivered a CAGR of 21% which is well ahead of the private sector’s 15% and more than double the industry growth of 10%, underscoring the durability and resilience of our franchise. Growth momentum in fact accelerated further in quarter three FY26 with Retail Ape growing a strong 30% led by our proprietary channel. Proprietary channels delivered 52% growth in the quarter driven by secular expansion across agency, online and cross sell engines. Agency growth was fueled by improved activation rates among new advisors and top distributors alongside some very steady gains in productivity.
Direct salesforce growth was driven by both capacity expansion and improved productivity. Overall, offline proprietary channels grew by 43% while online business grew an impressive 75% during the quarter. Even on the partnership side, our business continued to gain traction delivering 13% growth in APE terms in quarter three driven by the scaling up of the partnerships established over the last two years. New partnerships in the banking and broking segments now contribute around 5% of our individual ape. Backed by strong execution, a competitive product suite and technological capabilities, we have ensured a counter share exceeding 25% across all new Banca partnerships on group credit.
Life business also grew by strong 45% in Q3 FY26 driven by the pickup within MFI segment, scaling of partnership built over the last couple of years and launch of the newer group product Group Smart Health insurance plan in Q2 of FY26. The NRI segment remains another strategic growth pillar contributing approximately 12% of individual adjusted first year premium and delivering consistent performance. To further strengthen our presence, we have received all the requisite regulatory approvals to establish an office in the Gibb City. This will act as a strategic hub to enhance access, improve service delivery and capture growing opportunities in this segment.
To broaden our reach and further diversify our distribution Footprint, we added 51 new partners across retail and group segments during the first nine months of FY26. Going ahead, we remain focused on deepening of our existing partnerships while scaling newly onboarded relationships to further accelerate the growth in this segment before we move ahead. Happy to note that our growth trajectory continues in the month of January as well. Our sales grew by 29% at a company level with proprietary and partnership channels growing at equal growth rate with a very significant contribution coming from our leading bank partner, Axis Bank.
Second point which we want to emphasize is around the product innovation to drive margins at access Max Life Product innovation remains a key strategic lever in creating sustainable value for our customers, partners, employees investors and of course the broader ecosystem. Our focus continues to be on building a well balanced product portfolio aligned with long term protection, retirement and savings needs. During Q3 our protection franchise delivered strong growth supported by GST related tailwinds and a targeted execution approach. Retail protection grew by 99% in Q3 with pure protection growing by 95% and riders by over 100%. In addition, our group credit protection business continued to scale steadily recording 45% growth in Q3 ahead of the industry average reflecting increasing penetration and a very strong partner engagement.
Our annuity business also reported healthy momentum growing 141% in Q3FY26 and by 107% during nine months FY26. This performance was driven by consistent execution across both retail and corporate annuity pools as well as growing customer demand for guaranteed retirement income solutions. We also strengthened our product suite during the quarter through the launch of several customer centric propositions. We introduced the Online Savings Plan plus which offers zero premium allocation charges, unlimited free switches and premium redirections along with some exclusive benefits for existing Access Max Life customers. In the corporate segment, we launched Corporate Advantage in Retirement an employee benefit smart plan which is a comprehensive solution addressing end to end employee saving needs including superannuation, gratuity, leave and catchment and post retirement medical benefit schemes.
We also launched a new participating proposition in Q3 supporting portfolio rebalancing and diversification. Due to all these actions, our Q3AP product mix stood at approximately par at 20%, non par savings at 18, protection at 15, annuity at 10 and ULIP at 38%, all this reflecting a balanced and resilient portfolio aligned with the long term value creation objectives. The third pillar which I want to highlight is around the customer centric approach that we always followed at amli. At Access Max Life customer centricity remains central to how we build and grow the franchise. Our approach is anchored in trust, transparency and consistent service excellence with a clear focus on fostering long term customer relationship.
This discipline continues to translate into some very superior customer outcomes and strong operating metrics. We continue to lead the industry on persistency as per Q2FY26 rankings, we remain the top ranked insurer on the 13th month persistency by number of policies and hold the second position on both maintenance 25 month and 37 month persistency. On the same measure our performance strengthened further this year in Q3FY26, 13 month persistency stood at 85% while 25 month persistency improved to an all time high of 76% which reflects a nearly 420 basis point year on year improvement. These trends underscore the quality of our customer acquisition and the effectiveness of our engagement and servicing capabilities.
Customer advocacy has also continued to improve. Our net promoter score increased to 58 up from 52 at FY25. Exit touchpoint NPS improved to 60 from 55 while relationship NPS increased from 50 to 55. All this indicating a very deep engagement and stronger customer confidence across the life cycle. In parallel, we have made meaningful progress on service responsiveness. Grievance Incidence rate improved to 36 in Quarter 3 FY26 from 42 in Quarter 3 FY25 reflecting sustained focus on resolution, quality and turnaround times. Taken together, these metrics reaffirm our commitment to building a high quality customer led life insurance Franchise Customer trust and persistency remain foundational to our strategy and continue to support sustainable long term growth for accessmax Live.
The fourth pillar we really want to focus and we’ve been working very hard towards it is on digitization for operational efficiency at accessmax Live, Digital innovation, AI and data engineering are deeply embedded across the value chain, enhancing customer experience, strengthening underwriting and persistency and improving operational efficiency along with acceleration in sales productivity. These investments are not incremental, they are in fact foundational to improving franchise quality and long term competitiveness. Sharing some progress made in various areas during this quarter in the area of customer experience and service efficiency, we have materially improved digital service efficiency and customer engagement.
Enhancements to our gen AI powered email bot have doubled one day ticket closures from 20% to 40% significantly improving the turnaround times. Our customer app continues to scale strongly with about 6 lakh downloads and 3 lakh monthly active users only within a few months of its launch. The app currently holds a 4.8 star rating and cumulative transactions have already exceeded 50 crores. Website digital NPS reached a record 74, up 9 points reflecting improved customer satisfaction. Our transition from MaxLife Insurance.com to AccessMaxLife.com was a strategic brand shift. While it temporarily of course impacted the SEO rankings, we have successfully restored visibility.
We are now ranked number one in term insurance across the top 50 keywords and number two in savings. Strengthening our digital LED customer acquisition in SEO in the area of persistency and renewal strengthening, we deployed voice AI led transcription analytics enabling 100% automated audits and deeper customer insight. This has further strengthened governance around renewal collection efficiency. In the area of claims and operational excellence, the straight through processing STB as it’s called has reached 36% for non early claims surpassing industry benchmarks for claims up to 7 and a half lakh rupees. This enables faster settlement and reinforces customer trust at crucial moments.
For the sales enablement, we continue to scale our M Sales app across channels. M Sales is a one stop solution for a sales frontline employee. We launched Ellie, a conversational HR BP copilot within the app supporting over 17,000 sales employees with instant HR assistance. Ellie also leverages predictive analysis to identify attrition risk enabling some very targeted retention interventions. Concluding on our digital strength, our investments are delivering measurable improvements across customer experience, sales productivity, persistency, underwriting quality, claims efficiency and workforce effectiveness. These capabilities are central to building a technology enabled customer centric life insurance franchise. I think overall in summary I just want to say that in the ever changing geopolitical environment and uncertainty, we remain focused on some very disciplined expansion and strengthening our competitive positioning while creating long term value creation for our stakeholders.
With this I now want to hand over to Amrit to take you all through the financial performance for the quarter.
Amrit Singh — Chief Financial Officer
Thank you Sumit and good morning everyone. Quick updates on key financial metrics at the MFSL level the revenue excluding investment income now stands at 24,625 crores, a strong growth of 18% in nine months. FY26 consolidated profit after tax is at 137 crore. It is largely lower than last year due to fair value chain impact and GST expense impact at MFSL level. At axis max life gross written premiums experience a healthy growth of 18% reaching 25,195 crore. And more importantly the renewal premium is also seeing a strong momentum growing at 17% to rupees 15,591 crores. Individual new business sum assured which is a very critical parameter for US grew by 41% to now reach 3.6 lakh crores.
Embedded value as at 31st December 2025 stands at 28,110 crore a growth of 16% year on year. Analyzed operating RoEV stood at 16.9% in 9 months FY26 even though for this quarter we don’t do detailed analysis of movement at a high level, we have experienced almost marginally positive operating variance during the quarter on Policyholder OpEx to GWP the ratio stands at 15.8 during nine month FY26 and the Policyholder OpEx has grown by 25% largely due to the GST disallowance which actually sits in the operating expense and also one time gratuity provision which we had to take because of labor code changes.
The GST disallowance was around 295 crores and the labor code change around gratuity was 60 crore. Adjusting for this, the opex has only grown at 14% level. Solvency position is healthy at 201% as we end 31st December 2025. Assets under management have now reached 1.93 lakh crore, a growth of 12% for 9 month FY26. As Sumit also highlighted, retail product mix is very well balanced with participating products at 16%, annuities at 9%, non participating, savings design at 24%, protection and health at 14% and ULEP at 37%. Each of these categories are experiencing healthy growth with the exception of ULITS where some moderation was also intentional which was driven by series of targeted initiatives to improve overall quality and profitability in 9 months FY26 margins have now expanded from 21.9% last year to 23.6% in current year leading to a growth of 30% in VNB.
Despite the pressures which we experienced due to GST quarter 3 FY26 margins also stands at 24.1%, an improvement of 90bps from last year. Q3 FY25 as we had guided earlier in the first half call, the gross impact on margins is close to around 300350 basis point due to GST though through a series of cost actions, commercial conversations, product mixed tweets, we have been able to mitigate almost 1/3 of this impact in Quarter 3 FY26 and more importantly in the run rate we are kind of experiencing that. We have been able to mitigate almost 70 to 80% of this impact and we are fairly confident that over few quarters we will be able to mitigate this completely.
We continue to reinforce our guidance which we had set out at the start of year that which is for NFY 26 then NBN’s will land in the range of 24 to 25% along with now stronger sales outcome that we are experiencing. I’ll pause now and I’ll request the moderator to open the question for questions.
Questions and Answers:
operator
Thank you ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press Star and one on their touchstone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press Star and two participants are requested to use their handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. We Take the first question from the line of Shriya Shivani from Nomura. Please go ahead.
Shreya Shivani
Yeah, hi, good morning. Thank you for the opportunity and congratulations on a good set of numbers. I have two questions. My first question is on the VNB margins itself. Now you’ve mentioned obviously the product mix and opex ratio etc. Have helped you in mitigating one third of this gross impact that you’ve spoken about. But however, I thought the distributor negotiation was yet not completed or was it completed enough to bring about such a big impact? Because the margins between 2Q to 3Q is very much far away from the 350bps that we had. 300 or 350bps that we had spoken about.
So some understanding on how much of the mitigation happened due to cost action, product mix and distributor negotiation. That’s my first question. My second question is on on some of the regulatory changes that are happening and there was an RBI document as well last night. Can you highlight what sort of impact you expect in your banker channel going ahead? And this conversation actually started with for the Banca channel back in November 24th itself. So what all changes do you expect going ahead or were the processes at the bank level already changed back in 2025?
Amrit Singh
Thanks, Shreya. I’ll take the first one and then I’ll request Sumit to get in on the regulatory one, I think on the distribution conversation. So as we mentioned in the last call, we have taken a very balanced approach when we have approached the challenge that we were faced with with respect to the impact coming on gst and we had indicated in the product categories where this is more structural in nature, we will have those dialogues and conversations with the distributors. We have to a fairly large extent actually executed some of those things. And on the categories which are more critical and important in our assessment, that has largely it’s kind of achieved and done.
Beyond this, I think the recovery and recouping would be more the product structure changes, you know, management and navigation of product variants within the product per se to mitigate the impact that kind of came across. On the regulatory one.
Sumit Madan
Yeah, Shreya, I think on the second one you mentioned about the circular which came in yesterday, also some of the changes that have happened since November 2024 in all our interactions and whatever we’ve seen so far of the circular, I think these are all steps in the right direction. Eventually they build more customer confidence, they help us improve the penetration because of that. And I think industry largely is positive towards some of the changes that have happened. So I see the circular which came in very, in a, in a very positive light with some of the changes which will only help us build long term customer confidence as far as insurance is concerned.
Shreya Shivani
Just to follow up on that. So there were a lot of changes which were being taken after 2024, November 24th already. So is there anything which you can highlight which is incremental, which again Access bank or whatever, whichever of our banker channel will have to go and make some more changes with that regard? Because I remember in our conversations back in 2025 also there were changes being implemented at the bank level.
Amrit Singh
Yeah. So this is Amit here, you know, with some of the banks that we work with are really the leading banks in the country and they also have very heightened sensitivity towards overall mis selling grievances which kind of come along some of these things using a lot of analytics and checks in our journeys, what we had and this is largely implemented in all our large bank relationships that each and every sale that is done, it is assessed for its suitability. And also there is a very smart verification process to independently assess whether the quality of sale is adequate and understood by that customer.
So some of these steps, I mean even it predates this November 24th journey. I can only say that we have now moved more if there was only an X percentage coverage of the portfolio. That portfolio from new business perspective now almost stands at 100% kind of levels. So we have progressed quite healthy both at least in the top two banks that we work with on some of these elements. So I don’t think we in our assessment though, it’s a little early for us to also understand the circular in full detail. But some of this from a miscelling perspective, I think the safeguards have been in play for some point in time.
There’s always room for further improvement. But as Sumit said, I mean anything which curve Nicell might be might appear on a short term basis from a sales perspective a bit negative, but over a longer horizon all of this is very positive. It’s, you know, as we internally call it a froth in a sales perspective it just gets eliminated, which is always a healthy sign for any industry.
Shreya Shivani
All right, okay, this is useful. Thank you and all the best.
Amrit Singh
Thank you.
operator
Thank you. We take the next question from the line of Avinash Singh from MK Global. Please go ahead.
Avinash Singh
Yeah, hi. Thanks for the opportunity and great set of performance. The first question would be more on growth. So right now if I see of course on a EP basis the growth is extraordinarily strong even on a. You know that your individual rated premium the growth is strong. Now looking forward I mean because in the last one year or so there has been some mathematics around, you know the monthly premium paying terms coming in between earlier. So of course right now the AP versus two to I would say strong. Now looking at growth, where do you see your anchor to be? I mean more like the 20 plus where your IRP is growing or you can still grow faster than that.
I mean particularly I’m asking this question because in the recent months there could have been some tailwinds in terms of the GST and all and that at some point will start to stabilize some bit of a guidance on growth. And second, I mean again more from the industry and your perspective of course your nonpar growth has come good in Q3. But looking ahead, given the scenario where kind of a bond yields are rather sticky whereas deposit rates have seen a significant decline, this is kind of typically a very conducive environment for non par sales. Do you see that non par sales to kind of accelerate? Because I mean your non par sales is good but overall industry has not done that great in non par in an environment that should be likely a conducive for non par.
So these are my two questions. Thanks.
Amrit Singh
So thank you Agnazji. I think from growth perspective our momentum has been quite strong. As Sumit also mentioned on the individual adjusted basis we are growing at 20%. The private industries are 13. So good solid differential and we have seen that trends to actually continue through and also on AP basis now for the full nine months period the growth is back to in line with the individual adjusted growth that you see of around 21%. So there is only a small differential very frankly sitting in nine months. Right now we are very confident I think we will be able to continue through this momentum which may be you know an upward revision to certain guidances that we provided at the start of the year.
So at least on sales the teams are quite confident with the momentum that we are experiencing over longer horizons. We have always maintained that from a market growth perspective, from the industry’s overall growth that happens it experiences. We will always try to aspire for a 300 to 500 basis point faster growth in the market and that remains that we hold on to on non past sales. I think sometimes it’s also about product launches and introductions. This quarter specifically saw an introduction of a participating product. So we saw some support kind of come through. But if you step out from quarterly introductions etc.
I think a Non participating design with the long term guarantee proposition that it offers is a very important product which the consumers can have as part of their asset allocation decisions. We will. This is an important category. We will. We always. We never want to have over dependence on any single category. So we will keep the overall product mix balance and you will keep seeing from our products teams innovations coming in this specific area. So it’s. I think it has. There is a demand component to it which always remains structurally intact given the inherent role a long term guarantee proposition provides.
And there are some supply dynamics which is around product introductions which can keep varying from quarter to quarter.
Avinash Singh
Got it. Thank you.
operator
Thank you. We take the next question from the line of Swarnav Mukherjee from BNK Securities. Please go ahead.
Swarnabh Mukherjee
Hi sir, thank you for the opportunity and Congress on a great set of numbers. Sir, two three questions. First on BNB margin. So you if you if you could give some color on the VND walk because what I was trying to understand was that had this impact of GST and label not been here, what would at a 4 level our margin be? So you mentioned that out of the 300 or basis points kind of 100 bits you have mitigated this year. So is it fair to think that like margins would have been 200 bits higher because if this was not there so some color on that and plus also label law, what is the impact? And I’m assuming that that would be one time and so going forward like you said that you have reduced 70 80% of the impact now on a hundred basis.
So we’ll carry kind of 50 60bps ahead into next year. Some quantification or granularity in this regard from the current margin perspective and how do we see it in the next year would be very good. That is the first one. Secondly sir, I think commendable execution on the protection piece on the partnership channel also the mix have kind of gone up. So is this, do you think this is sustainable or is it like immediate tailwind of the GST scenario and maybe you know normalized to a 70% level in USD in the earlier quarter. So what are the trends you are seeing in this last maybe 40, 45 days and on the 13th month persistency.
So just wanted to clarify that on the eight month basis number that you have provided in the presentation, the drop that we are seeing is similar to what we you have reported on a 1 inch basis also I think. So what is the reason for that and anything specific that has incrementally played out in nine months?
Amrit Singh
Okay. Lots of questions there. I’ll take a few. So your observation that if there was no change on gst, I mean though you know these are a bit theoretical in nature because we should always understand that the change in GST in which we welcomed the change because it kind of provided our category almost an essential goods status created this positive clip around demand duration on protection business. But assuming that that also stays and GST impact was not there, your observation is right. The margins could have been 200 basis point higher than what we have reported for sure and largely significant reasonable portion of this is also coming from the yield curve support that we are experiencing for ourselves on labor law impact on the P and L.
The impact is around on the gratuity provisions and impact of around 60 crores that we had to take. This is a one time hit which we had to provide for. This is actually routed not through the margins but through the EV because a one time and a one off margins anyways will over time horizons kind of bake in let’s say this increase outgoes but obviously certain actions that are in will also happen in restructuring the overall compensation philosophy so that some mitigation is also provided to these on 13 month again your observation is correct. We have experienced certain pressure on this particular 13 month persistency largely coming from you know a certain product category which was which is in play for the last year especially post the surrender regulations.
Also this, the proportion of that also in the book is kind of reducing and some bit of, you know, likely drop in persistency was also baked into our thinking when we were pricing some of these products. So this impact has come through. But all actions at our end will be taken to ensure that we are on a improvement journey towards 13 months as we have been across other cohorts of products. Because eventually this is a reflection of whether we have sold a product which the customer has understood and is willing to continue to that commitment.
On partnerships I’ll request the growth momentum and partnerships are requested.
Sumit Madan
Sure. I think on Swanabhav on protection specific specifically we’ve been observing the numbers since 22nd of September and on a daily basis we’ve seen our traction improving as far as protection is concerned. When we were looking at the numbers other than the exception of Diwali one day prior to Diwali and one day post Diwali we’ve seen some very healthy growth as far as protection numbers are concerned. So I think there is a good momentum and the momentum still continues. So to your question, whether it’s sustainable at least right now the momentum still holds good so we don’t see much of a concern.
We may be slightly better than the market currently. Also we are growing pure protection by 95%. Some of our marketing efforts in quarter four actually are specifically focused around protection and that is the impact that we’ve seen coming from across partners, including Access where we have a good story moving around as far as the protection business is also concerned.
Amrit Singh
I think his question was also generic on overall sales.
Sumit Madan
On overall sales, Sonab, we have an exceptionally good mix as far as quarter three is concerned. Like we mentioned in the beginning, growth has come across proprietary, growth has come across partnership. All the banks are fighting well even the current momentum continues in the month of January. As we were discussing, some of the large players like an Access bank have seen some exceptionally good growth in the month of January as well on the life insurance side.
Swarnabh Mukherjee
Right, right sir, understood. I mean just a follow up like in Access vis a vis, say third quarter. What is changed? Why you are. I mean I think what I understood was that ULIP was a drag in terms of the growth also in, in the partnership channel. So what has changed which is leading to this growth? And just one another question I just wanted to squeeze in is any color you can give in terms of the timelines for the amalgamation.
Sumit Madan
I think. Sorry to answer the first question first, some of the work we’ve done over the last 3, 4, 5 quarters is now actually taking shapes as far as Access bank is concerned. In Access Banks we’ve been focusing not only on branch banking but some of the other channels as well. So what you see in the numbers now is some of the emerging channels really fighting exceptionally well for us other than branch banking. So I think the growth coming from some of the asset verticals on the life insurance side is again very healthy. Some of the tech initiatives that we took, swanap on the Access bank side, again those are making some of the productivity improvements as far as our salespeople are concerned.
So the productivity numbers have also gone up. So I think it’s a momentum of a lot of hard work which has been put on the ground over the last few quarters And I think it’s all coming together now as far as Access bank is concerned. To your next question, Amit, you want to take that?
Amrit Singh
Yeah. On the subit actually spoke about that post. The amendment in the act we have from both the boards at MFSL and Access Maxillary board taken in principle approval to start preparing for, you know, the amalgamation steps. Now. You should understand that the act has been passed now, obviously there will be a regulatory framework which needs to get created. We await guidance and clarity and directions from the regulator on that aspect. As in once that is, you know, closed from the date of filing of the scheme, we don’t expect it to be more than 12 to 14 months kind of a time frame.
Swarnabh Mukherjee
Okay, understood.
Sumit Madan
But we will update all of you as and when there is more progress on it and we will keep providing periodic updates here.
Swarnabh Mukherjee
Sure, sure, sir. Thank you. Thank you for all the answers. All the best. Thank you.
Sumit Madan
Thank you. Thank you.
operator
Thank you. We take the next question from the line of Sucrit D. Patel from Eyesight Fin Trade Private Limited. Please go ahead.
Sucrit D Patil
Good morning to the team. I have two questions. My first question to Mr. Sumit is looking ahead. What will be the key priorities guiding Max financial tactics to strengthen the profitability while sustaining growth in the life insurance business? How do you see, how do you plan to balance expansion, product innovation and margin protection over the next few quarters? Just want to understand your point of view on this particular thing. Thank you. That’s my first question. I’ll ask my second question afterwards.
Sumit Madan
I think, Shupri, that’s a very relevant question. As we look ahead, we have a very good sales momentum. But I think like you rightfully pointed out, for sustainable growth, one of the key priorities, Supreet, if you look at the numbers also is how some of the new partnerships are taking shape for us. We have been working very hard on acquiring some new relationships and we specifically called out that some of the new partnerships actually now add up to 5, 5 and a half percent as far as the overall number contribution is concerned in every quarterly update.
We’ve been also updating in terms of the progress as far as new partnerships are concerned. So if you look at the number we’ve disclosed in this report as well, we’ve had 51 new partnerships as far as those numbers are concerned. Sorry, some disturbance in between. If I could just request the moderator to. Supreet, I don’t have the disturbances at your end. If you could just go on mute. If you are on the road, may I request you to just go on mute? Some disturbance there.
Sucrit D Patil
I will just mute myself. Thank you.
Sumit Madan
Yeah, please. Thank you.
So anyway, just to complete the point in terms of growth from a future lens perspective, new partnerships form a key part of the discussion. The earlier gentleman also asked us how we are doing against some of the large partnerships at Axis. We really focus on some of the larger relationships as well. There is a big transformation project we are running along with Axis which is helping us reach the last mile. Some of the productivity improvement areas. That transformation project now is really coming into its true avatar, giving us benefits along with it. Even at some of the other large counters, like a yes bank, we remain in terms of counter share, the largest player.
If you look at some of the newer bank partnerships, it’s never easy to be the fourth, fifth or the sixth player. But in the recent partnership that we’ve acquired, we’ve already become the number one in terms of counter share across the new partnerships. I think number two is around the quality of the sales. I think there is a lot of work being done towards the quality of sales. That’s the reason why you see some of the numbers around 1325 and further ahead, those numbers are improving and some of the circulars also which recently came out.
There was a question earlier. I think again we look at some of these changes in a very positive direction. They all come and help the customer. There’s been a lot of automation at the sales end, Supreet. There are various tools now which have just made the governance much more effective. With the help of data today, the propensity to buy insurance for a customer, it’s a much sharper analysis. So as a company we’ve really invested a lot, not only on digital but even on data because we feel that could be one defining moment for us. So I think it’s a combination of all these things which are leading to this kind of a growth.
Because even if you look at the agent activation, even if you look at the productivity increase, as far as proprietary channels are concerned, so I think it’s a good mix coming across. So I’m actually very confident as far as the future ahead is concerned.
Sucrit D Patil
Sir, thank you. My second question to Mr. Singh is the profitability has come under some pressure in this particular quarter. But as you plan ahead, what financial signals will guide your decision making process on cost control, capital allocation and margin protection? How will these particular signals shape the long term earning stability and shareholder value creation? Just want to understand your plan of action on this.
Thank you.
Amrit Singh
Yeah, thank you, Supreet. Firstly, I think, you know, being financially disciplined is one of the key priorities internally that we drive as well. And we have always committed that, you know, we are anchored to, you know, maintaining the margin profiles in the range of 25% plus minus with the bias towards distribution expansion given the severe underpenetration the country has and the opportunity that lies in front of us. So we will keep the growth momentum going but always ensuring that the margin is also Maintained in a steady position. If you know that the margins will run up, it could either be passed on to the consumers or further accelerated towards distribution investments.
But at no point in time you will from us see that we are deteriorating the margins only at the expense of sales. So this is one of the guidance guiding principles that we have been at it and we will remain committed to that in time in cost. Definitely there is a significant opportunity. I think some of these digital tools and AI interventions that you know are in various stages of some in POC and some in execution is providing significant uplift not only in the back end part of the journeys, but even from a sales productivity enhancement programs as well.
So the task is very cut out for us that leveraging some of these tools and developments, you know, rationalize overall cost structures and work towards enhancing overall consumer value and shareholder value.
Sucrit D Patil
Thank you and best wishes going ahead.
Amrit Singh
Thank you.
operator
Thank you, thank you. We take the next question from the line of Vinod Rajamani from Nirmal Bank Securities. Please go ahead.
Vinod Rajamani
Yeah, thank you for the question, for taking my questions. So I had three questions. So firstly on this access channel, the. So the access channel has delivered, you know, kind of stable growth but there has been a significant improvement in the mix. So should we assume that this, is, this is a little more permanent in nature or is, is it just temporary in terms of some of the ulips coming off and some of the other more higher margin products doing better? So that’s the first question on the axis bank channel. Second was on margins again at an overall level because of the improvement in the product mix, the margins have come to a very healthy 24.1%.
So just wanted to know what is the, is this sustainable or is it. How do we kind of see say Q4 playing out? Is it sustainable or is it, you know, is just that this quarter was much better in terms of the product mix and thirdly, just on this group credit life that’s already gone up by around 45% in Q3. So if there is for example if this axis bank, this reported inorganic micro finance ambitions crystallize, are you ready for a step function jump in rural volume in terms of access to credit access, the credit access micro finance book and so on.
So just wanted to know around that. So these are the three questions.
Amrit Singh
Yeah, so thanks Vinod. On the first one, the mix change which has happened at the bank, you would recall at the start of the last year, in January of last year itself, we had started indicating that along with bank, we are working towards navigating the product mix in a more balanced nature rather than over dependence on a single product form. And we are very happy to see that actually that navigation we have been able to execute that did mean for the first nine months, you know the numbers to be steady. But as sumit updated in the month of January itself, now one full cycle has kind of come through, the momentum is picking up.
We remain quite confident that along with the balance mix which the bank and us run, the sales momentum will be maintained going forward as well on margins. I think your question is what is causing it and what’s the sustainability around some of these things. So if you really see from a last year walk to this year walk perspective there there is a I can almost 1 1/2% due to mix and 1 1/2% due to margins. Broadly getting lifted has aided the margins but obviously the GST impact which is still residual in the business kind of brought those numbers down in this mix is fairly sustainable.
Those opportunity of, you know, protection annuity continues to be long term opportunities. We are seeing a positive flip there. There could be some moderation over long horizons. But overall on those categories remain fairly bullish with respect to margins getting lifted due to yield curve. As and when the yield curve also changes, there is always a repricing opportunity available in the industry, in the market. So we do think these are some things, these are not one offs that you will experience in this quarter and they will disappear. Nothing like that at all on gcl. Firstly, I think we are not in any position to comment on the speculative aspect that you were asking around what our parent bank is actually having a dialogue on or not having a dialogue on.
We have absolutely no idea to that. But we are definitely seeing strong disbursement trends across product categories. Not just MFI but even home loans and other personal loans that we run portfolios across our partners. Not just one specific partners across our partners. With respect to our readiness capability of writing any product form. We have been in this business for a very long period of time. So there should be no doubt that we have that capability to write some of these product forms.
Vinod Rajamani
Yeah, thank you. That answers all my questions. Thanks so much.
operator
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, in the interest of time and fairness to others, we request you to restrict to two questions per participant. We take the next question from the line of Prayesh Jain from Motilal oz Financial Services Ltd. Please go ahead.
Prayesh Jain
Yeah. Hi, good morning, I’m Pangajan. Good set of numbers. Just a couple of questions. Firstly, what has been the product level margins Change that you would have seen say nine months this year versus nine months last year. And the reason I’m asking this is in spite of the fact that we had such a strong flip to protection, we have increased attachment rates, credit protection has seen a growth still. The margin profile obviously has been impacted by the GST but product level margins, if you could allude to whether there is production margins are weaker than what we had seen last year or how should we think about those product level margins? That would be a first one and second would bending access max life, was it max life earlier that benefit how it has it has been kind of rolling out and the kind of growth that we’ve seen.
So basically that would should it reflect in more growth coming in from tier 2, tier 3 towns and what’s the kind of profitability or you know any risks in those in those areas? Those would be my two questions. Thanks.
Amrit Singh
Yeah, I’ll take the first one and I’ll request sumit to kind of speak on the brand aspect. On Keshe we obviously don’t disclose product level margins but from a directional trend perspective I can provide you certain inputs to get some better sense. Look, power margins have stable so there is not like a big change happening these nine months as compared to previous nine months on protection. Your observation is right. There is an improvement in the margin profiles which kind of comes through savings business, the non past savings business as compared to last year. You recall this full year we have run through the surrender regulations impact as well.
So there also there is not like any large improvement, some pressure only on those specific individual margins in that particular product category unit link margins because now as part of the selling process overall increasing some assured in unip links has become almost like a muscle that we have developed. The unit link margins have also seen some improvement. Credit line margins are largely stable but that’s an overall lay of land on the brand aspects and the benefits.
Sumit Madan
Yeah, I think before that.
Prayesh Jain
Yeah, yeah. So on the. So where is the impact maximum in margins on from a GST standpoint? If you could allude to that.
Amrit Singh
Where is the impact maxim and soma?
Amrit Singh
Look, you know there is, there are some counterbalancing elements also which are happening. The support in the environment, interest environment is also supportive. So the maximum impact, if you really ask me where mitigation is accelerated and required more is generally in the unit link segment.
Prayesh Jain
Got that, thanks.
Sumit Madan
Yeah. I think on the awareness side pressure there is a clear impact. So while when you meet the agents, when you meet the partners, you can touch and feel but even if you look at some quantifiable numbers, there is a certain parameter that we observe in terms of total awareness. In Tier 2 and Tier 3, our score has actually improved from an 85 to 90. What is also more important in Tier 2 and Tier 3 is that our consideration score has also gone up from a 78 to before the merger or let’s say before the brand refresh happened with Axis, some of the weaker markets used to be south and east.
And we’ve seen a clear shift towards positive as far as these markets are also concerned. We’ve seen a total awareness score in these two markets moving from an 85 now to 90. Even the consideration score from a 77 has actually moved to 80. So I think it’s been a very positive impact for us. And some of those changes is clearly being reflected in the growth numbers that we have.
operator
Thank you. We take the next question from the line of Madhukar Laddha from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Madhukar Ladha
Hi. Morning. Congratulations on a very good set of numbers. So just, you know, going back on the, you know, partnership channel and there actually Axis bank growth, if I look at nine months number is just about 7.5% year over year. Now even within that, I’m assuming that obviously there will be some bit of group credit life also where you would have seen higher growth. So what is the organic individual business growth? And that seems to be a little bit sluggish. On the other hand, if you look at the other partnerships, their growth is much better.
So can you also talk a little bit about which are the key, who are the key sort of partnerships over here and what is the growth Runway available in those key partnerships? I understand that we are also adding a lot of partnerships right now. So if you could speak a little bit about that. And the other thing I wanted to know was the merger process, how this is like you, you have to get access Max Life listed and however Max Financial is listed right now, which is also the holding company. So. So what are you thinking in terms of the structure of the reorganization that will happen on this, any thought process? I understand that the guidelines are yet to come out, but yeah, those two would be my questions.
Sumit Madan
Thanks. Yeah, Madhuba, thank you for all the three. We’ll try our best to answer all the three questions. I think in question number one, around access the growth. Yes. Is it around 7% or so for the nine month period when we go out? Since you spoke about some of the other partners also, there is a clear realization that it’s a privilege to have a large bank like Access because just in terms of volume that’s the kind of change that we can see as far as a large bank like Access is concerned. And I think it’s clearly getting reflected Madhukar, like I said earlier, some of the actions we had taken earlier.
So if you look at the month of January also I think clearly the changes are now coming into shape. When you do a comparison with some of the other channels, the growth that we have in the month of January from Access looks steady. Amrit also mentioned that the last quarter has also been about balancing some of the product mix at Access. Today for example, the ULYP mix is largely in control. We follow a very segmented approach as far as Access is concerned where we look at online the bank RM’s accordingly. So I think some of those changes are there which have helped us grow profitably as far as Access is concerned.
I also mentioned earlier Madhukar in terms of the emerging channel, the kind of scope that a large bank like Access has. So I think some of those stories are now only playing out that the growth momentum even at axis I am very confident is going to be much higher. Our projection around this quarter also are reasonably aggressive Madhukar and I don’t see any challenge the way the momentum at this point of time at Access is some of the other partnership in my opening page also Madhugar, I mentioned that we observe it very closely in terms of how the business is coming across new partners they’ve already started making and adding to the numbers to the tune of 5%.
Some of the new banks that we’ve added other than YBL also whether it’s a csb, whether it’s an sib, whether it’s a tmc. So I think some of those banks clearly are adding value along with some marquee brokers that we have re engaged and started the business now to flow as far as those discussions are concerned. If you look at the overall split also Madhuka, between partnership and the proprietary side of the business, I think we are one of the few companies which has a very good spread between the two without being over dependent on any.
So I think that way it looks good moving ahead as well because there is momentum, there is win beneath our wing. So the story looks good as far as the last question around merger is concerned. I’ll ask Amrit to just elaborate on that.
Amrit Singh
I think it’s a little premature for me to comment on the exact and the specific structure. But needless to say the collapse of the structure is a Very fairly simplistic thing. We have MFSL where large portions of their asset is nothing but the equity that they own in the underlying entity. And at MFSL level on the balance sheet, both on the asset and liability aspects, there isn’t anything which is which is very significant or material. So it will be a fairly simplistic collapse. But please allow us time for you know the specifics and associated details to come.
operator
Thank you. We take the next question from the line of Sanket Goda from Evindes Park. Please go ahead.
Sanket Goda
Yes, thank you for the opportunity. My first question is again probably on the growth. See the prop channel. You made investments, it led to a very strong growth and now you have a meaningful base. So to deliver the same kind of a growth of around 1520 in that range then your bank, especially Axis should do well. So if I just wanted to understand a bit of color that the prop channel growth which is around 29% will continue for how long, how underutilized it is still given you have increased the capacity and maybe a mid teen growth or a high growth in Axis when we can expect it to happen.
So that’s on growth. And second point was on annuity given it has done very well in either quarter or nine months. This just can you give a color whether it is individual led or a lumpy group lead to just to understand how sustainable this growth is. So these are my two questions. And lastly on 13 month persistency. Amrit, did you. I missed that answer a bit. You said the 13 month persistency was under a bit of pressure also because of the new surrender rules or it is just a base effect.
Sumit Madan
Yeah, we take all the questions and get one by one.
So sumit this side on the growth I just want to highlight we’ve had a. We’ve had some very consistent quarters as far as our growth numbers are concerned. So not only this quarter but if you look at the previous few quarters also we’ve been very consistent with our growth as far as partnership and proprietorship channel is concerned. If you look at if you really break down the numbers even on the proprietary side, whether it’s agency, whether it’s dsa, whether it’s E Com, whether it’s other businesses, there’s been very healthy growth agency. In fact you know in quarter three we came in amongst the top four agency channels in terms of sales after almost a gap of five or six years.
So I think a lot of work has happened behind that today to come at those kind of levels. On the core agency side, some of the new initiatives that we had taken on agency of Moving to Tier 2, Tier 3 locations in the form of a specific initiative we have called Rohan that is also working out well for us. And that’s the reason why you see the kind of growth that we’ve had as far as the agency channel is concerned. Our DSF continues to grow very healthy on the E. Com side both on savings protection.
We are the number one player as far as some of the larger aggregates are concerned. We take great pride in the D2C channel that we’ve built on the E. Com side because now of course it’s the number one channel as far as industry on the D2C side is also also concerned. So I think it’s a very good mix on the prop side. On the partnership side, if you really break the numbers, I think access is doing well because like I said, we wanted to correct the product mix. We have taken those corrections and despite that Access is now growing at almost 7, 8, 9%.
And I have been saying January looks even better. So I am actually very optimistic as far as quarter four is concerned. Whether it’s high teens, whether it’s some other number, very difficult to convince Ankita this particular point of time. But all that I can tell you is from an access growth perspective, Quarter four looks quite good. You want to answer the question on annuity and personal census?
Amrit Singh
Yeah, I think my annuity sanket first is it’s very broad based, it’s not lumpy, it is not associated to any specific deal. Actually on the retail side the annuity numbers are growing upwards of 100% and group annuity momentum is also strong in the ranges of 40 odd persons. So it’s firstly not lumpy and it is fairly retail in its nature. This growth on persistency, what I indicated was yes, there is some pressure because of 13 month. There are certain specific designs where we are experiencing that pressure and post surrender revisions as you are aware that there was a surrender value which was accruing immediately.
So certain some of that element also creates some bit of a pressure. But needless to say, I think all actions being taken to mitigate some of these things. But more importantly for that particular product, you will recall during these investor conversations we did bake in certain impact and persistency that we might experience because of the surrender values being available in the first year.
operator
Thank you ladies and gentlemen. Due to time constraint we take the last question from the line of Deepanchan Ghosh from Citigroup. Please go ahead.
Dipanjan Ghosh
Hi, good morning sir. Just taking cues from one of the previous participants, question. You know, on your partnership business we have already seen your counter share across all the new partnerships going up to 25% plus which obviously has benefited you over the past few quarters. Now in terms of scope for onboarding new large partnerships or let’s say this counter share increasing further which could support the growth trajectory, what sort of visibility do we have on that? And also in line with that, can you break up your or at least give us some color on your product mix between access or non access channels? As in the non access partnership channels?
Sumit Madan
Yeah, I think two large banks, one to begin with, whether it’s access or eh bank, we are number one as far as the counter share is concerned and both the businesses in terms of some of the approach that we have taken, those have given us some very sustained results over the last four to five quarters we’ve been consistently maintaining these positions. So from that perspective, yes we are in a bit of a good zone. The new banks like I mentioned, across seven banks that we’ve acquired recently, in all the seven banks we have a counter share of more than 20 in three of those seven banks we’ve already become the number one player as far as counter share is concerned.
I think whenever you enter into a new bank it’s not easy really to make your presence fail because there is an existing relationship between the two teams. There are these products that every team is familiar with of the previous company. I think their credit to our tech platform, credit to our integration, credit to some other training modules that we have that we’ve been able to make a difference in a very short span of time. And like I mentioned three banks we already are number one across all banks. Other banks we are already at 25% plus.
So I think there is a good story going as far as new partnerships are concerned. I have to say there’s a lot of opportunity as far as the market is concerned. We are in advanced discussion as far as some of those businesses are also concerned with the various banks across would be a little premature to mention but the opportunity exists across many of the PSU private banks. So very optimistic in the further growth coming in. If you look at our growth in the overall new banks channel, the growth is actually already 103% over last year.
So good story going along. Lot of discussions happening across new players. So partnership is a channel which we are exceptionally bullish about Mix between access and non access bank channels, the non access bank channels are actually are more towards traditional designs than unit link designs. So there. The mix is a little bit more biased, actually, I’d say towards the traditional designs and anything else.
operator
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. With that, we conclude the question and answer session. I now hand the conference over to the management for their closing comments.
Nishant Kumar
Thank you. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for being part on Max Financial’s earning call. We look forward for much such interactions in the future. Thank you once again. Goodbye.
operator
Thank you on behalf of Max Financial Services Ltd. That concludes this conference call. Thank you for joining us. And you may now disconnect your lines.