Fino payments bank reportedly registered a profit of INR 14.1 Cr in the third quarter of FY22, a growth of 116% on a quarter-on-quarter basis.
Fino Payments Bank on April 12 announced that its board had approved a strategic investment in fintech startup, Paysprint.
As part of the deal, the payments bank will acquire a 12.19% stake in Paysprint for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition will be executed by way of subscription of shares.
The move will enable Fino to leverage Paysprint’s technology to offer API plugins for the bank’s digital platform. It will also enable Paysprint to expand its reach and offer its products to more users on the Fino platform. In addition, the two will also collaborate on a host of financial and non-financial use cases to attract more customers to its user base. It will also enable Fino to deepen engagement with existing customers and offer more services to its users.
The investment is part of the Bank’s overarching digital roadmap towards what it calls Fino 2.0.
Notably, this is the first investment for Fino Payments Bank since its public listing in October last year.
Founded in 2006 by Manish Khera, the startup at the outset operated as Fino PayTech. The company was granted an in-principle approval to set up a payments bank in September 2015 and commenced its operations in June, 2017.
The bank processed transactions worth INR 1.33 Lakh Cr in 2021 and reportedly opened more than 2 Lakh accounts per month during the same period.
Additionally, Fino also boasts of a huge merchant network, which the bank claims stood at nearly 8.7 Lakhs as of December 31, 2021.
On the other hand, Paysprint is a fintech player that offers APIs in the areas of banking, payments, travel, lending, among others. Founded in 2020 By Deepankar Agarwal and S Anand, PaySprint also provides a Unified Open API platform to banks and other fintech startups.
The fintech startup claims to have achieved an annual Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) of INR 5,500 Cr in FY22. Paysprint also stated that It onboarded more than 600 partners across a slew of sectors such as banks and NBFCs during the course of the year.
Add to that, Indian fintech startups raised $7.97 Bn across 280 funding deals last year, with an average investment ticket size of $33 Mn.
Meanwhile, the announcement spells good news for the Bank. It remains to be seen how effectively the payments bank leverages this opportunity to set the stage for its next phase of growth.
