SBI Funds Management Limited

SBI Funds Management Limited

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Dec 02Next Earn

Q2 FY2027 · Earnings Call TranscriptOctober 23, 2026

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the Q2 FY27 earnings conference call of SBI Funds Management Limited. 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 the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star, then zero on your touch-tone phone. From the management team, we have Mr.

Debasish Mishra, Managing Director and CEO; Mr. Srinivas Jain, Joint CEO; Mr.

Manish Mehta, Chief Business Officer; Mr. Amol Joshi, Chief Financial Officer; Vinaya Datar, Chief Compliance Officer; Dinesh Balachandran, Head of Investments; Manish Chheda, Chief Investor Relations Officer joining the call.

I now hand the conference over to Mr. Debasish Mishra.

Thank you, and over to you, sir.

Debasish Mishra

A very good evening to everyone, and thank you for taking the time to join the call. Let me begin with a brief view of the macro environment.

The second quarter was marked by steady domestic fundamentals and broadly stable earnings, even as global pressures from higher crude, firm US yields, and a stronger dollar triggered foreign outflows and bouts of volatility. Despite this, strong domestic participation helped absorb the outflow shock, reflecting the ongoing shift of household savings into financial assets and keeping overall market sentiment resilient.

Now I'll brief about the mutual fund industry. Mutual fund quarterly average AUM expanded by 13% year-on-year and 5% sequentially as on 30th September 2026, touching ₹87.5 trillion at the end of September 30th.

Monthly SIP inflows continue to show strength despite market volatility and touched all-time record high of ₹32,490 crore in September '26. On fixed income, debt AUM saw a 5% year-on-year moderation, while liquid AUM recorded a strong 27% increase.

Passive AUM grew 23% year-on-year, highlighting sustained investor interest. Overall, industry inflows remained constructive despite short-term volatility across all categories.

Industry continue to have a positive new customer addition, reaching out to 6.3 crore unique customers, increase of 11% year-on-year. Now let me tell you the performance of SBI Funds Management.

Your company sustained its leadership in the industry with quarterly average AUM market share of 15%. Our mutual fund quarterly average AUM stood at ₹13.14 lakh crore, or ₹13.14 trillion, registering 10% YoY growth compared to ₹12 lakh crore in the same quarter last year.

As on September 30, 2026, our active quarterly AUM was ₹8.99 lakh crore, reflecting 9% year-on-year increase, and our 5-year CAGR was at 17%, backed by stable performance and sustained investor flows. On passive front, we remain the largest passive asset manager with quarterly average AUM of ₹4.15 lakh crore, up to 11% year-on-year, further strengthening our leadership in that segment.

On the alternate side, PMS and advisory, our QAAUM, that is quarterly average AUM, stood at ₹13.32 lakh crore, broadly in line with expectations. While the previous quarter saw a one-time relocation of a large mandate, it doesn't have any material impact on our revenues, and underlying business momentum remains stable.

Our AIF platform continues to scale well, with quarterly average AUM at ₹7,437 crore, reflecting 27% year-on-year growth. To further strengthen and deepen our AIF capabilities, we have also added a dedicated business head for the AIF practice, bringing sharper focus to product expansion and institutional engagement.

Offshore funds contributed approximately ₹42,100 crore to the overall AUM. Gross margin across equity, debt, liquid, and passive strategies remained stable during the quarter, and there has been a continued expansion in gross yields on year-on-year basis.

Our unique customer count increased by 10% during the year, rising to 1.85 crore as of September 30, 2026. Our SIP AUM rose to ₹2.07 lakh crore with a 15% year-on-year increase.

Monthly SIP inflows continue to remain steady at about ₹3,900 crore. We continue to maintain one of the largest distribution network in the industry, supported by nearly 136,000 distribution partners.

This includes over 125,000 independent financial advisors, over 10,000 national distributors, and over 96 banking partners, including State Bank of India, supplemented by 23,000-plus SBI branches and 297 SBI Funds Management branches, our branches. This extensive reach enables us to service investors across more than 98% pincodes in the country.

Our strong presence across tier 2 and tier 3 cities is reflected in the healthy B30 contribution, with nearly two-thirds of SIP inflows originating from these markets, underscoring our expanding reach and commitment to broad-based financial inclusion. Let me brief you about the new product launches.

We continue to maintain a strong product pipeline across mutual fund, SIF, PMS, and AIF, with a clear emphasis on differentiated, investor-focused offerings. During Q2, we launched 5 new products, including 1 SIF, further strengthening our overall product suite.

Among the filed offerings, both the Magnum Equity ESG Fund and SBI Balanced Hybrid Fund saw stronger investor responses. Our Magnum Equity ESG Fund closed its NFO as one of the largest fund in its category.

Our GIFT City franchise continues to scale well, supported by the launch of SBI Global Thematic Advantage Fund. This initiative enables us enables the investors in India to access global investment opportunities through LRS route.

We are enhancing our capabilities across active, passive, and alternate strategies, with strong traction in AIF, PMS, and SIF, and growing international reach through GIFT City and offshore mandates, reinforcing our ability to serve rising India-focused demand. Now I'll brief you about technology and digital improvements.

We continue to strengthen our digital-first approach. Today, 94% of our transactions are done digitally, supported by stronger adoption across InvesTap, Mitra, and partner platforms.

InvesTap has grown into one of the largest digital investing app in the industry, with over 4.3 million, that is 43 lakh, registered users. Monthly digital volumes now exceed 1.4 million transactions, and our ongoing investment technology, AI, and automation are helping us to scale efficiently, enhance distributor productivity, and deliver seamless experience to investors.

We recently showcased our new tech platform, that is called Arambh, in the Global FinTech Fest in Mumbai. Arambh is one of the first assisted digital onboarding solution built specifically on first-time investors.

It enables Aadhaar-based biometric KYC, folio creation, and first investment in a single seamless journey all together. Importantly, it helps us to reach customer segments that remain outside the formal financial ecosystem, strengthening our financial inclusion efforts.

Arambh also integrates digital PEKRN, that is PAN-exempt KYC reference number. This is for the customers without a PAN card, allowing us to extend mutual fund access to the masses in a simple and compliant manner.

Coming back to the financial performance, for H1 FY27, operating revenue increased to ₹2,336 crore, up to 12% from ₹2,089 crore in same period. Operating profit rose to ₹1,797 crore compared to ₹1,626 crore in H1 '26, 11% increase.

Profit after tax came to ₹1,566 crore in H1 '27. Our strong net worth of ₹7,270 crore as on September 30, 2026, continue to support strategic investment in scale, capabilities, and long-term value creation.

To conclude, our strategic focus on four key pillars: democratizing wealth creation, accelerating digital delivery, strengthening investment performance, and building new growth engines. With this clear agenda, we aim to deliver consistent outcomes for our investors and continue to build a strong, technology-driven, and future-ready franchise.

Thank you for joining the call. We now look forward to your questions.

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 1 on their touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and 2.

Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles.

First question is from the line of Shriyansh Jain from Motilal Oswal Financial Services Limited. Please go ahead.

Shriyansh Jain

Hi. Thank you for the opportunity.

A few questions. Firstly, if I look at your flows, we've seen a very strong traction in September.

If you could just highlight some data points around that number as to how was the exit flows in September for us, comparing to the back book market share? How has been the flow market share on the equity side, equity plus hybrid side?

That would be our first question. Second question is on the cost front.

We've seen a significant increase both sequentially and YoY in terms of employee expense as well as other expenses. What has driven this, and what should we think about this cost from a full-year perspective?

Last question will be on the yields front where we've seen a marginal dip in terms of yields sequentially. Is it just attributable to the telescopic structure or is there anything else?

Also if you could share the yields across equity, debt, liquid, etc.? Thanks.

Debasish Mishra

Thank you. Thank you for the question.

I'll tell you the flows in active equity, passive, and liquid. Of course, I mentioned the numbers.

YoY, it has gone up, our AUM, as 11,995 billion to 13,140 billion. Active equity, QAUM grew by 9% YoY to 8,986 billion, passive 11% YoY to 4,154 billions, and liquid AUM has seen a strong traction with ₹1.2 lakh crore, ₹1.2 trillion, and 31% YoY.

SIP, I mentioned already, it is 15% YoY growth, and monthly SIP flows are nearly always at 40 billion. Coming to your second question on the cost factor, yes, we are heavily invested into a few technology and human resources in the last quarter, that is September quarter.

These are quite kind of one-off instances that our cloud infrastructure, our AI-driven systems, and we are taken a new head for alternates. All these have been a one-time kind of factors of cost in the quarter 2, which will not be repeated in the quarter 3.

For the yield part, I'll ask Srinivas to please comment

Srinivas Jain

on. Thank you, sir.

On the yields, I think the marginal dip is basically you're comparing our last year H1 to now, but when you look at it from a Q1, Q1 to Q2, I think is what you asked. There has been a slight minor dip because in Q1 we had seen some significant lower cost at our operating cost level, which again, because of a little higher cost this time, operating profit is marginally come down.

From a yield point of view, our equity yield continues to be strong. In fact, right now at Q2 FY27, equity yield would be closer to about 62, 63 bps on an average, and our debt yields are in the range of about 30, 34, 35 bps, liquid around 11, 11.5, 12 bps.

That's the range that we have today.

Shriyansh Jain

These are usually competitive or close to best in class in its category. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Mahek from Emkay Global.

Please go ahead.

Mahek Shah

Hi. Thank you for the opportunity.

My first question was on the other expenses. Actually you mentioned that there were some tech-related costs which were there in Q2, and Q3 onwards you would see largely these costs not coming back.

Should we take it as the other expenses for the balance of the rest part of the year to be in line with the Q1 number? That was my first question.

Secondly, we have almost added 1.9 million fresh SIPs during the quarter. Could you just help us from which channels these SIPs are being sourced?

I was particularly looking if this was largely been driven by SBI channel or any other channel, yeah.

Debasish Mishra

Thank you for this question. In fact, you have rightly pointed out, this one-time investment in IT and human resources will be definitely moderated.

It will be reduced to a large extent. A very small part may remain till the year-end, but however, we are very mindful of these expenses.

They are giving us large dividends for future. My take here is these are gradually coming down because our investment in AI and cloud infrastructure as well as key hirings will be for the lifetime kind of thing.

Now coming to the SIP inflows, yes, the SIP inflows has been from all the channels, and including SBI. We have a large number of mutual fund distributors, our robo, our RIAs have all contributed to the mutual fund SIP inflows.

It is wholesome flow, not specifically to SBI or any specific channel.

Mahek Shah

Got it, sir. Sir, and one more if I can just squeeze in one more question.

If we look at the employee cost, you just mentioned that we are investing on the talent side. Could you just help us with a full-year guidance or employee cost growth over the next 1 or 2 years if you can just help us with that number?

Debasish Mishra

As we are a large player in the market, we are entering into also different expansion fields like AIF and PMS and alternates. They are all we are investment going on.

Also, as we are growing in the market, our sales force, our distribution network also increasing. These are all proportion to the growth factor.

Of course, we did a significant hiring in this quarter, which will not be there in next quarter. Moderation definitely is there.

As you grow, will be growing in this. One-time expenses which happened this quarter may not be repetitive in the next quarters.

Mahek Shah

Got it, sir. Thank you so much.

Debasish Mishra

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Supratim Datta from Jefferies.

Please go ahead.

Supratim Datta

Hi, sir, ma'am. Thanks a lot for the opportunity.

My first question again is on the cost bit. I do understand that there have been one-off hirings and investments this quarter.

If you could help me understand that the ₹50 crore additional spend versus last quarter, what proportion of this would recur going ahead and what proportion will not recur, if you could give me some color, that would be helpful. Secondly, wanted to understand that the recruitment that you were doing on the AIF side, what are the strategies that you're looking at rolling out?

How do you see this business scale up over the next 3, 4 years? If you could give some color on that, that would be helpful.

Lastly, we have seen markets being very volatile. You have done fairly well in continuing to add SIPs.

If you could give us some color around the investor sentiment or during your discussion with distributors, what are you finding with respect to investor sentiment? How is that tracking, and is there any divergence in behavior that you are now seeing versus maybe 3, 4 months back?

That would be helpful. Thank you.

Amol Joshi

Yeah. Hi, Supratim.

Thank you for the question. On the cost side, I think what you should assume as a recurring part is around 50% to 60%, of which will continue because these are all senior management, sort of investments that we've done on people.

On the technology also, while some of these items will drop off after Q2, there'll also be some incremental investments as our business grows in terms of enhancing our capability to meet customer needs on the digital and as well as certain AI-related investments that we plan to continue as time goes on. Yeah.

Debasish Mishra

Coming to the AIF-related business and strategies, see, we, being the largest fund house, also entering into the AIF field long back. Although the basket or the size is not that large, but still we have AIF folios in our kitty.

What we're doing now is we're looking at the private equity and private credit space more closely by selecting a few select individuals, and we filed in the exchange also. We have taken a head of alternates in our company and building a strong team to drive alternates in both private equity and private credit space.

I cannot give exact number right now. Yes, in the years to come, it will be one of the books which are giving us good volumes in top line as well as bottom line.

I'll come back to your very important question of sentiment of investors. In the last quarter, when the market is volatile and market is really not coming to anybody's expectations, there is also a safety net or a safety feeling coming back to the customer's mind.

That is why you see the SIP inflows are growing. Although markets are quite volatile and I think you can also find out the point-to-point Nifty is coming down, I think YTD has come down by 8.2%, but the SIP flow is increasing.

We are now looking those kind of sentiments where SIP flow or wherever the hybrid schemes, these are things which are now in demand and where the investor sentiment is growing much more. In fact, to supplement our question, our focus as the largest fund house is also increasing investor awareness on this kind of volatile market scenarios and much of our focus also on the B30 locations, where we are also starting the SIP journey of new investors with proper understanding and also proper knowledge about the products.

Supratim Datta

That's very helpful. Sir, just one follow-up on the AIF side.

How much capital are you looking at committing into that business going ahead?

Debasish Mishra

We are not a subsidiary kind of thing. We are starting with our own division for some years.

Once it is a full-fledged kind of business unit, then we'll think of a substantial capital allocation. Now it is a part of our own system.

I'll also ask my Chief Business Officer to supplement the answer about sentiment of customers, because he's widely visiting the places.

Manish Mehta

Manish.

Supratim Datta

Sure.

Manish Mehta

Hi, good evening. Just to add to what MD sir had to say, at least our experience of when we've been traveling the country and meeting with a lot of distributors, I think broadly there are two segments of investors.

One, obviously, are people who have continued to remain in the mutual fund journey for a very long period of time and have maybe experienced a few volatile periods during their investment journey. There is a lot of maturity that those segments of investors are showing.

I think the anxiousness is probably amongst new investors who may have come into the industry in the last 2, 3 years. I think there's a lot of effort which we feel as SBI Mutual Fund and with the distribution partners in terms of how to educate these investors and sort of give them enough examples to showcase that long-term is actually the right investment mantra.

Over long periods of time, people have made very healthy CAGR returns on their investments. The testimony of that is if you see the September net sales numbers of the industry, the number came in at about ₹38,000 crore.

What does it mean? That in spite of a ₹32,000 crores of SIP book, I think there was incremental about ₹5,000 to ₹6,000 crores of lump sum purchase which investors have made.

I think that also gives us a lot of confidence that investors are definitely maturing and have matured a lot. Every opportunity that they're getting to sort of look to add into the mutual funds, I think they've been very actively doing it.

Supratim Datta

That's very helpful color. Just one thing here.

Is there a difference in the sentiment when it comes to assisted channels and unassisted channels or fintech platforms?

Debasish Mishra

We have not done any study on that, but I'll again request Manish to give a overall view.

Manish Mehta

Yeah. See, definitely I think, in these periods of time, at the end of the day, it's investments and money.

Definitely when there is advice that maybe clients are getting through their distribution partners or through relationship managers of the banks or national distributors they deal with, their understanding probably is much better. As far as the fintech platforms are concerned, the decision to buy is also being taken by the investor.

The decision to act is also being taken. Even in that space, I think one thing which we've been observing that is a lot of these platforms have also be taking up a lot of initiatives at their end to communicate to those segments of investors.

It could be through maybe digital IPs that they've been doing. It is through a lot of YouTube seminars that they've been doing with mutual fund like even at SBI also, we've been doing a lot of such videos of our fund managers or just general question-answer sessions which they've been uploading on their website, all of that, and writing a lot of blogs.

They're also doing their bit to see to it that they're able to reach out to these investors and communicate that story of long-term is how you look to create wealth.

Supratim Datta

Understood. That's very helpful.

Thank you.

Manish Mehta

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Shreyas Pimple from Nomura.

Please go ahead.

Shreyas Pimple

Hi. Thank you so much for the opportunity.

My first question was on cost. While you highlighted that cost has been elevated in Q2, do we have an ESOP policy in place, and in which quarter can we expect this higher cost due to ESOPs coming in if you can explain that, please?

Debasish Mishra

Yeah. We have already ESOP policy in place, and it is fully active, and we don't expect any cost implications in the coming quarters in this.

Whatever the regular description happened, that will continue, not an exceptional cost increase due to ESOP policies.

Shreyas Pimple

Sure. That is very helpful.

My second question was on SIF. We have seen strong AUM growth from around 35 billion to 44 billion in this quarter in SIF majorly because of the new SIF that we have launched.

My question was ex of that inflow from that one SIF launch, how much is the inflow coming into SIF as the industry, and what is the inflow share of SBIMF in that SIF inflow coming for the industry?

Srinivas Jain

The unfortunate part is we don't have SIF-specific SIP data available in the market, but we can hazard a guess it's a smaller number because SIF is a high-ticket investment value. We have seen both traction in the new fund that we launched where we've got, of course, record collection.

On our previous fund of ours, we've also got net inflows there. In a way, we have about 16% plus percent market share on that particular segment and continues to grow.

We have only done 2 funds till now, and we still have another 6-odd, 4 more to go out of the total 6 SEBI-approved stuff. You could expect more of the SIF products to come in coming days to months ahead.

Shreyas Pimple

Sure, sir. Just one thing, what would be the industry-wide SIF inflows if you can help with that maybe, per month or per quarter?

Srinivas Jain

I can pull that up, but I don't have it handy at this point of time. I think the most of these flows are because of new funds being launched, I think that will look like fairly anomaly, including ours, because the SIF itself is a new phenomenon.

What I feel is most of these funds, there are quite a few of them now, all of them have been launched in the last quarter or so, majority of them. I'm assuming all of these flows would be NFO-related flows, will be a significantly small portion coming from non-NFO.

Debasish Mishra

Yeah. In fact, what I'll supplement what Joint CEO said, SIP for the long time has been a small investor base, and we have seen that contribution of SIP from B30 cities is much more, like 65% is from B30 cities.

There the mutual fund schemes have more prominence than SIF. SIF-related SIP is coming up, but it has to catch up much more.

Yeah.

Shreyas Pimple

Yeah. Thanks for that.

Another question was on employee cost, actually. You highlighted that there were some hires, and because of that, we had a higher employee cost.

The cost quarter-on-quarter was higher by around 27, 28 crores. How much of that would have been one-time hiring cost?

What would repeat in the next quarter and what would not if you can throw some light on that?

Amol Joshi

Shreyas, you should look at the Q2 cost as a ongoing run rate. Sequentially, you see a bump-up in Q2 versus Q1 because Q1 had some write-backs built in into that.

From your perspective, you should look at the Q2 cost as a run rate going forward.

Shreyas Pimple

Sure. That is very helpful.

The last question was on yields. While our peers have seen quarter-on-quarter increase in revenue yields, we have seen a slight moderation in the yields.

While I understand you highlighted that it is majorly because of the increase in equity AUM, is there any distribution commission change or change in mix of the distribution? Higher distribution commission channel getting higher share of the distribution mix.

Is that is the case?

Srinivas Jain

Let me take this, Shreyas. I think if you aggregate this breakup rather than looking at it a overall yield, I think at every category we are almost 1 paise here or there from '26 to '27 FY.

I don't see there is any major change in individual category yield. It's just the asset movement which is the difference here.

Otherwise, there is really no change in yield. That means that there is neither any change in distribution cost as well at a quarter-on-quarter level from the fund.

These numbers have not changed dramatically. It's the change in the overall asset mix.

Debasish Mishra

We already clarified in last quarter that this 1st April onwards, we are revenue neutral in terms of the new passing methodology of the regulators. That has been already factored.

There is no change in yield. Rather, I could see, as rightly said by Joint CEO, that yield has year-on-year gone up by 1 or 2 bps in this quarter.

Shreyas Pimple

Fair enough. Thank you so much, sir, for answering my questions.

All the best.

Debasish Mishra

Thank you, Shreyas.

Shreyas Pimple

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Lalit Mohan Deo from Equirus Securities.

Please go ahead.

Lalit Mohan Deo

Hi. Good evening, and thank you for the opportunity.

Just two, three questions. One on the alternate side.

We are seeing some decline in the PMS AUM. Could you tell us what could be the reasons for them?

Secondly, if you could break up the overall revenue between the MF and the non-MF side?

Srinivas Jain

Yeah. So I think we had actually talked about this sometime ago.

One of the large investors' mandate got relocated, and as part of the relocation, this impact has happened on our PMS advisory business. It's an advisory business, it is technically non-material when it comes to the revenue side of it, but it did impact us in terms of overall AUM.

From a mutual fund, non-mutual fund point of view, our mutual fund, like we said, is around ₹13.5 lakh crores, and non-mutual fund today is also at the same kind of level. We are a 50-50 kind of a ratio between mutual fund and non-mutual funds today in

Lalit Mohan Deo

revenue.

Srinivas Jain

The revenue, obviously, mutual fund is a high-revenue product. In the mutual fund, non-mutual fund, if you remove the advisory services, we are roughly around 35 to 40 basis points as a average when it comes to offshore advisory and our alternate asset category.

Lalit Mohan Deo

Got, sir. Sir, any new products in pipeline for this quarter and for the remaining half of the year?

Srinivas Jain

Yeah. I'll take this.

We are already in process of launching a few products, and that is to consolidate our position in the market. Also to have how the market sentiment goes on, we watch very closely, and mostly value-based or strategic-based products will be in pipeline.

We'll launch as per the market conditions and also as and when we feel like there is investor demand on this. Once we file with SEBI, we'll be able to give you more data.

There are plans to launch category 3 in the coming months together. Obviously, we are building the category 2 capability with the new head of AIF joining us.

This is going to be an exciting period. In coming days, you will see us launch more capable products, not just in Cat 3, which we have done successfully, but in Cat 2 also in coming days.

Lalit Mohan Deo

Sure, sir. Yeah.

Thank you, sir.

Debasish Mishra

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Mohit Mangal from Centrum Broking.

Please go ahead.

Mohit Mangal

Good evening, everyone, and thanks for the opportunity. My first question is towards the B30.

I was looking at your presentation, and it says that the B30 SIP contribution has been around 65%. Just wanted to know the investors in those B30 are interested in our flagship schemes, and how long typically they keep the investments in these schemes?

Debasish Mishra

Very good question. I think our focus has been on B30 for a long time.

If you look at the same slide, 98% of them are more than 36 months. In fact, 36 months is a regulatory requirement, but that is more than even some years, like 5 to 10 years.

These customers are mostly moderate risk takers. As I mentioned before, the knowledge, the awareness programs we conduct now in B30 cities makes us to understand and believe that the investor education has been reaching to the last mile.

That is why the SIP contribution is 65%, and it is more than 3 to 5 years kind of range in this B30 cities. Now what we are planning to do is we are trying to again do more of investor awareness, more of investor education, and most of regional language based models and more of stories, more of learnings points.

We'll consolidate our B30 kind of offerings much more in the coming quarters.

Mohit Mangal

Right. This is helpful.

Sir, second is basically SEBI has proposed mutual-fund-only PMS. Wanted to know your thoughts and does our SBIMC have any plans to have a new team or how are we going about it?

Srinivas Jain

This is something that we as an industry have been pushing for, and SBIMF also has been one of them who've been asking for it, helping us build a lower-entry-barrier PMS product. We will definitely build an internal team in terms of fund selection process because this is an important stuff.

I think my understanding is this kicks in in April next year, and before that, we'll be able to put our team together. Of course, this is a product solution that we will definitely be part of in coming days.

The whole idea is to put a fund selection team who can design solutions that we can then make that offer. Certainly you'll hear from us on this category in coming days.

Mohit Mangal

Understood. This is very helpful, sir.

Thanks, and wish you all the best.

Debasish Mishra

Thank you, Mohit. Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Abhijeet Sakhare from Kotak Securities.

Please go ahead. Hey,

Abhijeet Sakhare

hi. Good evening, everyone.

My first question was a clarification on the cost comment. You said the employee cost is this new base that's been set in the second quarter that should continue.

Earlier there was one more comment which I wanted to clarify was around 50% to 60% of cost hike being more like the recurring one. Just wanted to clarify those two points.

Debasish Mishra

No, yeah, the cost structure which one-time happened to hiring will go down by 30% to 40%. So 60% would be what will be kind of recurring.

What looks a little aberration is that sequential quarter, that looks quite a high figure. All those hirings, all the one-times have been over.

I think 30% to 40% will be moderated, 60% will continue.

Srinivas Jain

It's definitely a new base, but last quarter, in fact, as a sequential quarter, there was also some exceptional item that was there on the HR cost or the people's cost. That again is a base impact that you will see.

Also, I think the question on what Amol was trying to say was largely around the other expenses side of it, which is where we talked about tech expense and part of it. On the tech expense, we expect a part of it to continue because some cloud compute and AI cost will be there.

We are also coming up with our own data center which is going live in a couple of months. Some of these costs would get moderated as we move our cloud instance to an on-prem instance.

These are actually investments that we are doing to improve productivity, and on that, I think it's a capital investment for us. It's kind of a capital investment for us.

Abhijeet Sakhare

Understood. My second question was on the SBI versus other channels, if it's possible to quantify the contribution in terms of flows or any qualitative color if there is a slightly higher difference between how those two channels are behaving, let's say, the quarter gone by and maybe comparable period last year?

Srinivas Jain

I think the better way to look at this is to look at where we are improving. I think what happens in an SBI kind of a channel is that we've already made significant inroad there.

In the other channels, we've actually made significant inroad in the last quarter, especially on the banking side we've actually moved the needle. We expect that in coming days other channels' numbers also start looking up significantly.

State Bank of India obviously has a huge potential when it comes to new customer acquisition because of the base itself, and we've been talking about that 530 million customer base that the bank has and the potential for us to kind of tap into it. That will continue to be there.

Our real benefits in market share growth is now coming from channels like bank and other distributors.

Debasish Mishra

SBI group or SBI channel contributes around 20% of the net inflows, which is also almost like the same level of the AUM, the same level in the last year quarter also. Things are not drastically changed for SBI or for us.

Abhijeet Sakhare

Got it, sir. Last question was again some qualitative feedback if you can give on what's been the feedback on fund performance, especially from the large independent channels?

Debasish Mishra

Yeah. I'll ask investment head to respond.

Dinesh.

Dinesh Balachandran

Hi. Being a large fund house, we have funds across asset classes, across investment styles, right?

At any given point in time, you will always see essentially certain funds doing particularly well and certain funds not doing so well. If I have to aggregate it, the one encouraging trend for us is if you look at recent performance, it has definitely improved in aggregate terms.

That is definitely an encouraging trend. Another data point to share is when you look at the aggregate equity plus equity-oriented hybrid schemes, and when you look at their performance over the last 3 years, last 5 years, they still look quite healthy.

Over the last 5-year period, roughly 70% of our funds are in the top two quartiles. Even if I look at the last 3 years, close to 45% of the funds are in top two quartiles.

If I then sort of further reduce the time horizon, that number has again moved up above 50%. At the margins, the trend is definitely improving.

As I said earlier, because we are quite big and we have a variety of funds, you will always essentially see at any given point in time some sort of variation in fund performance.

Srinivas Jain

His question as how the market is kind of looking at it, and I think we have seen some really green shoots, and some of our distribution partners actually picking up some of these strategies and scaling them. We hope in coming quarters this will continue, and we'll build on that.

Dinesh Balachandran

What we are definitely seeing is that wherever some of our flagship schemes, if they have improved in performance, the market is clearly recognizing that. Flows are definitely fast following in these schemes.

Abhijeet Sakhare

In fact, earlier

Srinivas Jain

the charts, we have almost in one category we have some 70%, 80% of net new money. It's clearly showing in the new money that's coming.

Abhijeet Sakhare

Got it. Thanks a lot and all the best.

Debasish Mishra

Thank you, Mr. Abhijeet.

Operator

Thank you. Participants who wishes to ask a question, please press star and 1.

As there are no further questions from the participants, with that, we conclude today's conference call. I would now like to hand the conference over to management for closing comments.

Debasish Mishra

Yeah. On behalf of SBI Funds Management, we thank everyone for joining the call.

Being the largest fund manager of the country, we would like to keep this trust, efficiency, productivity always on our target. We'll come back again in the next quarter with better results.

Thank you.

Dinesh Balachandran

Thank you, sir.

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of SBI Funds Management Limited, that concludes this conference.

Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.