Fino Payments Bank Q2 net profit at Rs 4.5 cr

The payments bank, which has a network in 700 districts of the country through 5.5 lakh merchant points, had reported a post-tax net profit of Rs 1.9 crore in the June quarter and Rs 1.3 crore in the March quarter, which was also its maiden three months of profit.

Fino Payments Bank on Wednesday reported a net profit of Rs 4.5 crore for the July-September period, making it the third consecutive quarter that it has ended in the black. The payments bank, which has a network in 700 districts of the country through 5.5 lakh merchant points, had reported a post-tax net profit of Rs 1.9 crore in the June quarter and Rs 1.3 crore in the March quarter, which was also its maiden three months of profit. It had posted a loss of Rs 11.1 cr in Q2 FY20. Its Chief Financial Officer Ketan Merchant said it is confident of growing the bottom-line by 35-40 per cent every quarter as compared to the preceding one. Its overall revenue rose to Rs 187 crore in Q2 FY21, as against Rs 167 crore in the year-ago period and Rs 141 crore in the preceding June quarter, he said. "We have cracked the code of making the business sustainable through the low-cost asset model," he added. During the September quarter, there was a dip in its revenue mainstay of remittances business but the newly-emerging Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AePS) business at its micro-ATMs spread across the network more than compensated, he noted. He further said in the last six months of the pandemic, the company has onboarded 85,000 new small-time merchants who help take banking services to the last mile. The firm, which has a stated goal to convert into a small finance bank, feels its deep reach and ability to drive deposits through the network will be a strong point. Merchant said the company does not feel the need to raise capital immediately and it is very comfortable on the quantum of buffers that it has presently.

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