Orbis sees Rs 5,000 cr assets under custody by fiscal-end

India's newest custodian services provider, Orbis Capital, expects to have Rs 5,000 crore of Assets-Under-Custody (AUC) by the end of this fiscal and will target the under-serviced non-institutional segment, a top company official said.

The start-up venture, which sold a 26 per cent stake to IDFC in May this year, already has about 50 clients, which includes two sub-accounts of Mauritius-based FIIs.

"But more than the institutional players, we are targeting the under-serviced segment, which also includes individuals, which is a first for any custodian," the company's Founder and Chief Executive Officer Atul Gupta told PTI here.

Custodian services is a niche service involving clearing and settling of accounts on behalf of large players in the market securely and was traditionally confined to mutual funds and insurance companies, among others.

Service providers charge a transaction-based service charge of around one to two basis points for clearing and settling the accounts and an additional 5-10 basis points of the assets under custody as annual fees for maintaining the accounts.

Around six months into operations, Orbis currently has around Rs 200 crore of AUC and is in advanced stages of talks with many more entities and individuals to help it reach Rs 5,000 crore, Gupta said.

The company is currently in advanced discussions with some top non-banking finance companies, brokers, PF trusts and corporates to get their accounts, all of which fall in the under-serviced category.

Orbis is the 13th entity to receive Sebi approval and is pitted against behemoths like Stock Holding Corporation, ICICI Bank, IL&FS, SBI and ABN Amro, among others.

"Our edge is service and the fact that there are no clashes of interests, as we are an exclusive custodian services company and that will help us in the long-term," Gupta said.