Launching a product like Fund of Funds becomes a lot easier with this facility (Leegality’s BharatStamp) available

There is no risk of loss of paper. In this lockdown it's been very easy for us and we know that everything is there in soft copy. The documents get done, signed, everything is digitally available. We have audit trails. From an audit point of view, it gives us a lot of comfort.

One is that the customer experience is a lot better. The way the mail goes to them, the branding, the look and feel - it just feels and gives them that feeling that we are one of those moving with the time and not stuck with very old processes.

With digital it is a matter of minutes. Secondly, location is no longer a constraint. Our customers are based across India. The customer could be in Bangalore, Kartik (COO at Waterfield) is in Mumbai, Vistra (the fund administrators) is in Delhi and still the entire signing journey can be completed in a matter of maybe 45 minutes to an hour. So it's very seamless.

We actually had our clients coming back and saying that this is a very user-friendly application. We've also had some clients coming back to us and asking us about Leegality because they want to use it at their offices. So I think overall they have had a great experience

I feel it always helps to go with an Indian partner. Touch points are easier. There are so many platforms that we are using at Waterfield and I can clearly see a difference. There's another platform that we use, which facilitates customers to invest overseas. If I need help, I have one point of contact, but it's not somebody I would always want to bother because he is also obviously busy. I did not see those constraints with Leegality. So Manan was the BD guy and after Manan stepped out and Utkarsh (Customer Success Representative) stepped in, I knew, if suppose Utkarsh is on leave there’s somebody else I can call up. So writing to a helpline or raising a ticket, and then waiting for a revert, it just doesn't give you that feeling. Sometimes it's just so much easier to pick up the phone, get your query addressed and sorted out. I think that was another big advantage with Leegality

We did also check [the global digital signing vendor], but we didn't really explore them too much because we just felt that you guys knew the local market better and knew what is required to be done. You guys knew what we wanted and Manan (Leegality Sales Director) had done this for another customer. So it was very easy to bridge the gaps with him. Also, when we use terms like C-KYC, CVL, you will understand because you guys know the industry. So that was the biggest advantage with Leegality.

I think today customers are getting more and more savvy and they want a better experience, and I think that is where this digital signing journey obviously is a much better experience for the client

With Fund of Funds, the agreement had to be signed by three parties sitting at three different locations - Client at any location, Waterfield at Mumbai and Vistra(Fund administrators) in Delhi. It also needs to be signed sequentially by the three parties to make it a legally complete document. This was practically not possible over email/physical in a time bound manner

In an agreement usually you want an annexure at the bottom of every page, and you'll want a full signature in two or three places. We didn't want our customer signing 40-45 pages. That is why from day one, when the Fund of Funds was getting launched, digital was the only thing available and was the only way we wanted to do it”

When we were moving from an advisor to a manufacturer, we wanted to give the customer an experience of doing everything digitally because the fund of funds documentation is quite bulky. We could do the physical process with the advisory agreement because that was a single attachment going to a customer. But the Fund of Funds had multiple documents and stamp paper

Papers could get lost and create a mess. Tracking all these documents moving in physical would have been a nightmare

In a physical process, the turnaround time is so much longer. Our customers are based across India. So physically moving documents is extremely cumbersome.

The physical process obviously is cumbersome. It doesn't give the customer that experience. There is obviously paper moving either in physical or over email. It's not a very comfortable solution.

Your sales team member and your implementation team member, Nayan, hats off to him. His knowledge, in terms of business, his knowledge in terms of the industry and his own product system is amazing. He has helped us a lot to stitch the process in the right manner. Commercial wise and technical wise - Nayan has assisted us in every aspect.

So go to market is something that is very easy and fast with the Leegality platform. With Leegality’s tech lead - Waqim - we were able to configure it within half a day. That too on on a weekend. That's the commitment your team has and hats off to them.

So our CIO and business head could not believe this kind of efficiency can be brought in by such a digital transformation. And that is where he actually realized that digital transformation can actually bring good results, impact and follow-on benefits which could not even envisaged at the time of taking up the project. Now, that particular success story has made our business head believe in digital transformation.

The kind of paper handling within the office you used to see is now almost dead. Now, even at the month end or quarter end or the year end in March, we're not bothered about the efficiency. We can manage without an issue.

Imagine a 78 page booklet, a rich template, rich stationary, and then losing money for missing application forms in such a docket. Imagine losing those forms or [they are left] non-utilized. When you consider these costs in the earlier process, a good amount of saving and efficiency has been brought in by the new process. More importantly, we also cut down on environmental costs the new process is eco friendly!

We have got maximum traction or adoption using Digital AIF account opening from distributors and customers. With Leegality, we can now onboard more customers per month, get better word of mouth reviews and increase the territories from where we source customers (e.g Tier II and Tier III cities). This helps us increase our AUM growth.

The process of opening an AIF account now takes 5 to 7 minutes a purely digital experience with no paperwork involved.

For PMS clients, the time taken to open an account has reduced from 2-3 weeks to 2-3 days i.e 10 times faster and a more efficient process

While we were doing that we found the Leegality platform. In terms of the workflow, you can design them so easily. Leegality took half a day for getting the workflow configuration done for our Proof of Concept. This speed was not possible with other partners we evaluated for POC. We felt safe and we felt fast, because of the experience and the knowledge of Leegality

Now we are 40,000 customers. In 2015, we were around 4,000 customers which is 10x growth. So, imagine the kind of logistical management and paper handling management for this. And if you continue with physical onboarding of customers, we would have had to dramatically increase our cost in managing physical documents. The quantum of errors, and reduced accuracy would jeopardize the customer experience and brand reputation.

The customer generally fills the application forms manually. Error comes in during data entry, where the form is physical and then you replicate that data into the system. If there is any mistake even in the spelling of customer name or address we have to redo it again. We have to go back to the customer again for re-execution of the document