Chennai-born CAMS, the OG fintech company, transforms into powerhouse

CHENNAI: When the conversation began in a soft, almost nostalgic tone, it could have passed for a newsroom reminiscence about the 1990s. Instead, it unfolded into the story of Computer Age Management Services (CAMS), a company many consumers know only as a back-office name, now emerging as one of India’s quiet fintech powerhouses.

CAMS, long known as a registrar and transfer agent, has been steadily reshaping itself into a fintech backbone spanning payments, mutual funds, insurance and even alternative credit analytics. “We were the original fintech companies,” said Vasanth Jeyapaul, CEO of CAMSPay. “We never called ourselves that, old-generation fintech.”

From its Chennai base, the company has grown into a dominant player with global ambitions, recently securing its first overseas mandate in Sri Lanka and a footprint in GIFT City.

Fund muscle

CAMS has expanded its leadership in mutual funds, servicing Rs 45.1 trillion in assets under management in FY25 and crossing the Rs 50 trillion mark in June 2025. Its one-stop investor platform, MF Central, continues to add features for consolidated services. The company recently partnered with new AMCs, including Jio BlackRock, which launched a Rs 17.8 billion new fund offer on its systems.

Despite its reach, it prefers to stay in the shadows. “CAMS never wanted to be a public-facing brand,” Jeyapaul said in an interaction with DTNext. “We do some meaningful business, but we do it quietly.”

Payments pivot

The big shift came in October 2024, when CAMS received approval to operate a payments entity. The cloud-native gateway can process up to 5,000 transactions per second, marking a sharp move from legacy back-office processing to a modern payments backbone.

“Banks, including public sector banks, are increasingly outsourcing payments operations and merchant acquisition,” Jeyapaul said. “We wanted control, scale and modernity and to become the partner that is cheaper, better, faster.”

QR push

Retail investors are next in line for simplification. A new QR-based product will allow distributors and even small merchants to enable systematic investment plans (SIPs) via UPI autopay. “We will initially restrict QR for mutual funds only, because security and fraud concerns are high,” Jeyapaul said, adding that several asset management companies are already on board.

Insurance play

CAMS is piloting Bima Central, a portfolio aggregator that also acts as a gap-finder connecting customers to funding partners. The platform, which has won regional recognition, targets India’s low insurance penetration. “We see huge headroom since both mutual funds and insurance penetration is still below 5 per cent,” Jeyapaul noted.

It is also testing alternative credit analytics, using UPI transaction data to help banks and NBFCs reach customers beyond the credit bureau net. It is active in account aggregation, recurring payments and blockchain pilots for mandate setup.

While the industry has been abuzz with consumer-facing apps chasing scale through cashback and gamified onboarding, CAMS is sticking to its conservative DNA. The growth story is more subdued, but potentially more enduring. As it steps into its new phase, CAMS is betting on its reputation as a trusted partner to banks and asset managers—the rails on which others build.