Infibeam Avenues Q3 net profit at Rs 26 cr

Infibeam Avenues on Tuesday said its consolidated net profit stood at Rs 25.9 crore in the December 2019 quarter.

The company had reported a net profit of Rs 30.9 crore in the year-ago period, Infibeam Avenues said in a regulatory filing.

Its income from operations stood at Rs 158.3 crore in the quarter under review as compared with Rs 319.1 crore in corresponding period of 2018-19, it added.

In the last fiscal, the company decided to focus on the core businesses of digital payments and enterprise software platforms.

In sync with this strategy, the company had divested its non-core businesses such as online e-commerce marketplace, and technology platform solutions for small and medium enterprises.

However, the company continues to offer technology platforms to large enterprise clients and governments.

The revenues in December quarter of 2018-19 include the revenue of non-core businesses which is not reflected in current quarter ending on December 31, 2019, the company said.

"We will continue to invest and build cutting edge technology and innovate in digital software and payments that will improve the way merchants and customers trade and transact through digitisation and democratisation of commerce," Infibeam Avenues Ltd MD Vishal Mehta said.

Infibeam said it has reported highest-ever digital payment processing volume of Rs 15,900 crore despite intense competition and overall slowdown in the economy.

There were several regulatory reforms in the digital payments business which resulted in pricing pressures leading to marginal impact on net revenues, it noted.

However, the volume and mix of transactions processed resulted in higher margins and overall improvement in profitability, it added.

The company said it now plans to enter into the card issuance business.

"Last year, we had invested in Go Payments (Instant Global Paytech) for 48 per cent stake in the company. Infibeam will make an additional investment of Rs 7 crore in the business to increase its stake in Go Payments from 48 per cent to 52.38 per cent, subsequently making it a subsidiary," it added.

Go Payments offers prepaid cards (including meal cards, gift cards and general prepaid cards) to corporates and SMEs. Currently, Go Payments has an active agent network of over 10,000 SMEs for distribution and process payments at a run-rate of over Rs 3,600 crore by offering various financial services.