Captains Speak     

Published: November 30, 2024
Updated: November 30, 2024

Protean eGov Technologies

Ready to bid for PAN 2.0 project 1.2 cr PAN cards issued in Q2FY25

Protean eGov Technologies, a leading force in universal and citizen-centric e-governance solutions, is all set to bid for the IT department’s PAN 2.0 project, focusing on its development and maintenance.

Indicating this at a conference call organized to discuss the company’s working during Q2FY25, Suresh Sethi, Managing Director and CEO, added that Protean is known for its comprehensive approach to digital identity and governance, and is positioned to enhance its role in India’s digital infrastructure. Pointing out that Protean E-Gov targets emerging business areas for growth, Mr Sethi added that the company is expanding its digital footprint into new domains.

Reviewing the performance of the company during Q2FY25, Mr Sethi said that during this quarter, revenue from operations grew by 12% qoq. This was mainly led by growth in the Tax and Pension services business. Tax services witnessed a healthy growth of 22% qoq, primarily driven by the launch of certain government schemes following the elections. The overall growth in this business is also coupled with a gain in marketshare. It gained almost 380 basis points yoy, rising from 51.6% in Q2FY24 to almost 55.4% in Q2FY25.

The total number of PAN cards issued by Protean in Q2FY25 stood at 1.2 crore. Its online PAN issuance surpassed offline PAN issuance for the very first time. These accounted for almost 51% of the total issuances. This is a very positive trend and bodes very well for our tax business, since it is more cost efficient, he said. Referring to the pension service, Mr. Sethi pointed out that the quarter marked resilient growth as it grew 7% qoq. During this quarter, it added 3.6 million new subscribers, including 826 corporates. This is reflected by a 40% qoq growth in the subscriber base. The company continues to maintain a dominant market position with a 97% aggregate marketshare. NPS Vatsalya, the pension scheme for minors which was announced by the government during the budget of 2024, was officially launched on September 18, 2024. It added more than 25,000 subscribers till September 30, a very good start to NPS Vatsalya.

REVAMPED APPS

According to Mr Sethi, during this quarter the company also launched a completely revamped NPS and APY mobile application. This has a superior user interface and experience, along with several new features, including enhanced security and transactional value-adds for new account opening and Tier 2 activation. Identity services witnessed a degrowth of 14% qoq, largely attributable to the high volumes in the previous year, where it was driven by the Aadhaar-PAN linkage deadline. Additionally, the company is facing competitive pricing at the foundational level for the eSign services. This very much ties into its strategy to strategically invest in building valueadded services on top of eSign and eKYC and e-authentication, basically the foundational identity layer. And that is where it has launched services like eSign Pro and Rise with Protean, which is an API marketplace within its data stack vertical. And it is layering it on top of the foundational identity services to drive more B2B engagement and business opportunities.

Maintaining that the new businesses continue to show momentum, Mr Sethi said the company was clearly seeing traction in the space of Open Digital Ecosystems. There is good market movement in ONDC. And similarly in agriculture, it is seeing multiple states getting connected to the whole agristack to take the agri-digitization forward. Its suite of digital services, which have been built as a vertical integration on top of the foundational identity DPI, is also showing good traction, complementing India’s digital growth story.

According to Mr. Sethi, the management is very enthusiastic about the recent developments in the DPI space in India, and is continuing to invest in these new lines of business. Its primary aim is to mature these businesses in the next three to five years and establish them as core contributors to its overall topline. During this quarter, it launched two new products. One was in the space of Open Finance and a new product called Protean LIFE. ONDC has forwarded into the financial sector with the launch of a new vertical which enables Open Finance. This follows the success in digital commerce and mobility across various categories like food, grocery, fashion, and electronics. The open architecture of ONDC provides a great opportunity to discover financial services by connecting the seeker and provider.

SOCIAL SECTOR

Coming to Protean LIFE, it sees that despite the significant growth in social sector spending, the landscape of philanthropy and CSR remains fragmented. Seekers often struggle to find suitable funding and resources while providers face challenges in identifying impactful projects and ensuring efficient utilization of funds. At the Global FinTech Fair this year, the company unveiled Protean LIFE, India’s first and one-of-its-kind platform to create an interconnected ecosystem where seekers, including individuals, NGOs and implementing agencies, and providers such as corporations, foundations, and individual philanthropists can collaborate transparently and efficiently to address social and environmental challenges, and the company is approaching this through a DPI-led approach.

Referring to the balance sheet of the company, Mr Sethi commented that the balance sheet continues to remain strong with more than Rs 750 crore of cash and cash equivalents, including marketable securities, and Protean is a zero-debt company. Profit after tax for the quarter grew by 33% qoq, rising from Rs 21 crore in Q1FY25 to Rs 28 crore in Q2FY25. However, the normalized PAT post adjustment of ECL was Rs 26 crore in Q1FY25, with normalized a PAT margin of 12.2% versus a similar kind of margin in Q2FY25.