Software & payments company Infibeam Avenues profit rises 16% in Dec quarter

Software and payments company Infibeam Avenues Ltd on Tuesday reported a 15.7 per cent rise in its net profit in the December quarter on the back of higher financial transactions during the festive season.

Its consolidated net profit was at Rs 41.44 crore in October-December compared with Rs 35.81 crore in the same period of the previous financial year, according to a stock exchange filing.

"The third quarter, being a festive period, witnessed a surge in financial transactions. The increased transactions (TPV) were predominantly driven by growth in the hospitality, travel, telecom, airline travel, and hotel sectors," it said.

The TPV (Total Payment Volume) rose 75 per cent year-on-year to Rs 1.81 lakh crore, with payment TPV increasing 32 per cent to Rs 70,900 crore and platform TPV rising 134 per cent to Rs 98,100 crore, in the third quarter.

The company reported revenues from operations at Rs 912 crore.

Infibeam Joint Managing Director Vishwas Patel said, "We expect to see more action in the coming years in the payment space, as our innovative payment technology - CCAvenue TapPay - is increasingly gaining its foothold in the domestic market. CCAvenue TapPay, which is a digital PoS (Point of Sale), has been at the forefront of transforming the way merchants collect money from their customers." It added about 228,000 merchants in the third quarter, averaging 2,500 daily.

For the current fiscal, the company maintained its financial guidance of Rs 3,000-3,300 crore of gross revenue, Rs 410-415 crore of net revenue, Rs 230-235 crore in EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortisation) and Rs 130-150 crore profit.

The company's board of directors approved acquisition of a 49.50 per cent equity from the existing shareholder of So Hum Bharat Digital Payments Pvt Ltd which has applied for RBI's New Umbrella Entity license for retail payment systems with consortium partners.

Post-acquisition, So Hum would become the wholly-owned subsidiary of Infibeam.

"We have evolved with new strategies to scale up the CCAvenue TapPay through tie-ups with third-party vendors, and in this third quarter we are already tasted the success of this strategy. We expect this strategy to pay handsome dividends in the form of extraordinary business growth in the payment space in the coming quarters and years to come," Patel added.

The company said it has forayed into capital market software tech space by acquiring 49 per cent stake in Pirimid Fintech.