CEO Yashish Dahiya Sees PB Fintech Reporting Profits From Q3

PB Fintech chairman and CEO Yashish Dahiya believes the second quarter of the financial year 2023-24 (FY24) was the last quarter when the company reported a loss and expects it to begin posting profits from Q3 onwards.

Dahiya made the comments during the company’s earnings call for Q2. PB Fintech, the parent company of Policybazaar and Paisabazaar, reported a loss of INR 21 Cr in the quarter ended September 2023, a decline of over 89% year-on-year (YoY).

“For me, the priority is always core business growth and then EBITDA. I’m very happy with our Q2 performance…I’m extremely confident that this will be our last quarter of losses. Next quarter we will definitely have profits,” Dahiya said during the company’s earnings call on November 6 (Monday).

The September quarter was also the third consecutive adjusted EBITDA-positive quarter for PB Fintech. Its consolidated EBITDA, excluding ESOP costs, stood at INR 13 Cr in Q2 FY24 as against an adjusted EBITDA loss of INR 53 Cr in Q2 FY23.

Revenue jumped 42% to INR 812 Cr in Q2 FY24 from INR 573 Cr in the year-ago quarter. Sequentially, it rose 22% from INR 665 Cr. Revenue from Policybazaar and PaisaBazaar, which are classified as core businesses, jumped 46% to INR 597 Cr in the quarter ended September 2023 from INR 410 Cr in the year-ago period. 

“We are very pleased with our core online business growth, especially health and term business growth…Our total insurance premium for the quarter is reaching an ARR of about INR 14,000 crore…Of our total online business, credit continues to contribute about 25% of total revenues,” Dahiya added.

The new insurance premium of health and term plans grew at 53% YoY. The fintech’s insurance premium for the quarter was INR 3,475 Cr with an ARR of INR 14,000 Cr. PB Fintech’s credit business under Paisabazaar also had a total loan disbursal of INR 16,500 Cr as of Q2 FY24.

“Credit business continues to grow very well, it has been EBITDA positive since December 2022…About 39 Mn customers have accessed our credit score platform and more than 75 of our disbursals are from existing customers,” Dahiya said during the call.

However, expenses continued to be a major headache for the company, rising more than 11% to INR 910 Cr in Q2 FY24 from INR 820.6 Cr in the year-ago period. Total expenditure jumped 18% from INR 768.4 Cr in Q1 FY24.

Shares of PB Fintech ended Monday’s session 3.2% higher at INR 724.80 on the BSE. After a rout on the bourses in 2022, similar to other new-age tech stocks, shares of PB Fintech are trading about 60% higher year to date.

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