Can you tell me about Kotak Bank acquiring a stake in KFIN Technologies? What does KFIN do?

Kotak Bank announced an acquisition of 1.67 crore shares or 9.98% if KFIN Technologies for a consideration of Rs.310 crore. The deal is expected to be completed by the end of October 2021. This deal come less than a week after Kotak Bank picked up the vehicle finance business of Volkswagen Finance to expand its vehicle loans portfolio. It clearly shows an inclination in Kotak Bank to focus on inorganic expansion of focused business ventures.

KFIN Technologies was formerly called Karvy Computershare, but name was changed after Karvy got embroiled in the market scam and was debarred from capital markets. KFIN is one of the two major registrar and transfer agent for mutual funds in India, other than CAMS. While CAMS has a larger share of AUM, KFIN has more clients. It looks more like a backward integration but Kotak has an MF operation and SEBI approval may hold the key to the deal.