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Protean eGov Technologies Ltd
BSE:544021
Protean eGov Technologies Ltd
BSE:544021
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Earnings Call Transcript
Transcript
Other Earnings Calls
Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the Protean eGov Technologies Limited Q2 FY '24 Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to [ Ms. Ronjan ] from E&Y. Thank you, and over to you, ma'am.
Thank you, [indiscernible]. Welcome to the participants on this call. Before we begin, I would like to mention that some of the statements in today's discussion may be forward-looking in nature, and we believe that the expectations contained in the statements are reasonable. However, these statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties that may lead to different results.
I urge you to consider the quarterly number is not a reflection of long-term trends or indications of full year results. With this, I would like to introduce the management we have here from the company, Mr. Suresh Sethi, Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer; Mr. Jayesh Sule, Full time Director and Chief -- I'm sorry, Mr. Suresh Sethi Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer; Mr. Jayesh Sule Full time Director and Chief Operating Officer; Mr. Sudeep Bhatia, Chief Financial Officer. With that, I would hand over the call to management. Thank you, sir.
Good morning, everyone. This is Suresh over here. And a very warm welcome to all of you on what is our maiden conference call post listing. We would like to discuss our results for quarter 2 and first half of FY '24. First and foremost, I would like to extend my heartfelt gratitude on the successful IPO, the overwhelmingly positive reception that we have received and an issue which was subscribed an incredible multiple times.
I'm confident that this marks for us the beginning of a prosperous and rewarding journey for all our investors. [indiscernible] is concerned, we believe we are at a critical space in India's digital transformation journey, and Protean continues to be a key contributor in developing India's digital public infrastructure.
We find ourselves uniquely positioned being one of the very few players and now a listed company in this space. This also allows us to capitalize on strong tailwinds of inclusive digital penetration across a growing demographic basis. As we look at our business model, I would like to give a quick introduction to the company, part of the primary IT-enabled solution providers.
This is almost a 28 years old company, which has been involved in building digital public infrastructure for the nation. We have done significant interventions in the space of taxation, pension, digital identity, and we have powered almost 19 national level stats [indiscernible] of India and various ministries in various sectors of the economy. And if we look at it, our business is broadly classified under four pillars. So the primary pillar that we have pillars -- that we have is, first of all, as an organization, we have been at the forefront of building populations in e-governance platforms.
Our first foray was to modernize the direct tax infrastructure. And as part of it, we built the tax information network for the country, which we continue to provide those services till date. The second big intervention from us was to build the central recordkeeping agency for the national pension system. And on the same, ERA infrastructure, subsequently the other mentioned Yojana which was the pension scheme for the economically weaker sections of the society was hosted on the same platform.
So these are our two large interventions in the space of e-Governance, which we are currently also running and they form a large part of our current business. The second big area for us has been in the space of provisioning digital identity. So as I mentioned, we run the tax information network and at the same time, we are also an agency mandated by the income tax department for PAN Card issuance and validation. So if you look at it, any accounts being opened in the country, that somebody is providing a PAN Card, that validation is done by us.
We host the PAN Card database, which is almost 600 million plus national tax ID reports. And this is against which the validation is performed, and we largely service the BFSI sector, capital market participants in enabling these transactions, be it for out opening, be it for supporting capital market transactions above a certain value, be it for supporting any property purchase wherever the PAN Card is required for validation.
So this aspect of digital identity is run on a database we manage for the nation. Our second business under digital identity is where we provide a licensed service agency role for UIDAI, where we provide e-KYC and deauthentication services. And lastly, we are a certified authority for E-Sign, which is today used to sign any document digitally using Aadhaar as a validating or authenticating ID.
So actually, our four identity verticals, therefore, run on PAN verification, E-KYC, E-Auth and E-Sign. And this is a business in which we deal with almost our 2,500-plus regulated entities, corporate entities and technology service providers in enabling the ecosystem to open accounts to authenticate transactions and to validate transactions.
So that is our second large pillar. The third one, clearly, where we are seeing that India's digital transformation is now going multi-sectoral and the country is well on the way to establish digital open ecosystems to create a democratic access to various e-Governance services. As we look at it, Aadhaar has been a watershed for the country and Aadhaar architecture of digital public infrastructure, which is a layered approach where at 1 level, you have the infrastructure, where today the identity is house or the foundational payment infrastructure, where we have UPI today as a great model.
Similarly, we are creating a layered approach and building infrastructure level, digital interventions. Currently, Protean is involved in five specific digital infrastructure sectors. We are contributing and powering ONDC, which is supporting e-commerce and mobility. We are likewise involved in providing conditional digital infrastructure interventions as a technology service provider in the space of agriculture, health, education and scaling.
Another important aspect for us under ODEs, open digital ecosystems as the data exchange foundational layer, which is in the form of the account aggregator. And that is where we have an operational amount aggregated license, and we are building a business on top of our digital identity business to provide data analytics and data exchange services.
Last but not the least, looking at these three verticals, the fourth one is clearly about powering enterprise digitization. So we are today providing consumer and corporate tech as application service providers. And likewise, we've built a vertical where we are providing infra services on cloud and Infosec.
So I will just summarize, building e-Governance platforms, which is where we started our journey, providing digital identity to various ecosystem players to enable account-opening transaction authentication, enabling democratic access to open digital ecosystems across multiple sectors. And last, powering enterprise digitization.
So that in a crux is the business model of the company running on these four verticals. And we are equally enthused to take this entire India digital stack to global markets, especially countries in the developing world which are looking at growth opportunities by building digital public infrastructure.
We are today involved in active discussions in multiple countries especially focusing on projects around national ID, around payments, around integrated tax infrastructure, around social security and welfare. So that has been the large interventions from the company perspective. And for us, clearly, as we look at it, there are favorable market conditions, we see access where all our services become very relevant as there is a demographic shift in the country.
There is increasing digitalization and Internet penetration. And likewise, there is financialization. Looking at our limited penetration of credit in the country, looking at the ability to create more inclusion around the country. These are the three areas which we feel will provide us strong tailwinds to build this business. All the new sectors of the economy which are getting digitalized clearly have a strong focus behind them in terms of being sunrise sectors where large-scale digital interventions are being carried out.
If you look at our current businesses, our top line comprises is largely contributed by our three large businesses, two of them being on the e-Governance platform front, which is taxation. And likewise, the second one for us, an important one for us being the central record keeping agency for pension services. The third large business is provisioning of digital identity. These three businesses combined together from a significant chunk of our business as we move into new strategic areas.
Under tax services -- under tax services, we've seen continued momentum for previous quarter and we posted a strong year-on-year growth of 33%. Our Pension Services likewise grew by almost 26% year-on-year, and there is steady growth in opening of pension accounts. Our identity services again saw very impressive growth from last year's first half of this year.
Similarly, when we look at our strategic focus area, the company in a way, is diversifying from three verticals to six, as we continue to focus on platforms, we continue to focus on our tax and pension business and our identity business. We are now evolving into three more verticals for which we've played a strong foundation, one is on open digital ecosystems, second is on data, and third is on the entire cloud and infosec services. There is strong momentum with continued project presence as a technology enabler for ONDC.
And today, we're seeing that ecosystem are scaling up and building well. In the last quarter, we had strategic tie-ups with two large multinational banks for providing buyer and seller technology solutions to enable them and their customers to become ONDC enabled. Likewise, last quarter was again very important. We ported into building the infrastructure here for a new open digital ecosystem for education and scaling and we continue to engage strongly with the BFSI sector in the domestic markets.
With this, I would like to hand over the discussion to Mr. Sudeep Bhatia, our CFO, for his comments on the operational performance for the first quarter and the first half year of FY '24. Sudeep, over to you.
Right. Thank you, sir. Good morning, everyone. First and foremost, I extend my congratulations to the team for an impressive IPO performance and I appreciate the continued interest and support from all of you. Building on the overview provided, I am pleased to share the robust financial performance we have achieved in the first half of FY '24. In the quarter ending September 2023, our revenues from operations reached around INR 235 crores marking a commendable 33% year-on-year increase and a solid 7% quarter-on-quarter growth.
EBITDA for the quarter stood at around INR 49 crores, reflecting a strong 16% year-on-year growth and a resilient 4% quarter-on-quarter increase. The net profit for the quarter reached INR 33 crores, showcasing a notable 25% year-on-year rise and a steady 5% quarter-on-quarter growth.
Turning our focus to the half yearly performance. Our revenue from operations surged to around INR 456 crores, an impressive 36% year-on-year increase. EBITDA for the half year was around INR 97 crores, demonstrating a robust 35% year-on-year growth. Our net profit for the first half was around INR 65 crores, marking a substantial 38% year-on-year increase. Crucially, we are proud to maintain our debt-free status, a testament to our financial prudence, providing stability and ensuring long-term sustainability.
Our asset-light model, coupled with strong cash flow, has resulted a net cash balance of around INR 650 crores at the end of the period. In summary, the performance of first half of this financial year, witnessed significant traction across all the three business verticals that we have with tech services leading the growth trajectory. Along with that, we have made significant investments and efforts to establish our new business verticals as well that we just explained.
Overall, our key performance indicators detailed in the presentation underscores the robust pickup in each of these verticals. Notably, 80% of our revenues are transactional while the remaining around 20% is annuity based. More than 65% of our revenues come from B2C segment, around 20% from B2B segment. with corporates as clients, and only 12% of the revenues are dependent on dormant billings. Looking ahead, we anticipate a solid growth trajectory guided by our experienced management team and also the investments that we are making in the new business verticals.
We are proud of our journey thus far and remain committed to deliver high-quality e-Governance services. We understand this being the first ever earnings release conference, there may be further questions around our business that we'll be happy to elaborate further over the next few minutes.
With that, I open the floor for questions and discussion. Thank you.
[Operator Instructions]. The first question is from the line of Srivathsan Ramachandran from Avendus Park.
Yes. Thanks for the overall outlook the first time -- especially post the IPO. Just wanted to get some sense on the new initiatives, right? Tax services, and others have been well established. We've been market leaders and for a very long time. Just wanted to get some sense on the new services on the data stack, what are you thinking along those lines, on the cloud initiatives and also what are you doing with ONDC.
Sure. So I will basically say as we look at our expansion plans, so one focus has been on building on top of the identity services. So primarily, as you would have seen, we have a very strong and robust business and enabling the BFSI sector by providing the fundamental foundational identity inputs, which is E-KYC E-side, E-Authentication and online Pan verification.
We clearly look at this as a foundational layer, and now we are doing a vertical integration. Where we are consuming ourselves all of these foundational services and providing a layer of micro services to the BFSI sector. A simple example being a bank wants to create a digital onboarding journey.
So today, while we might go to the bank and say we'll provide an E-KYC and E-Authentication service. We are now going to the extent of providing a full end-to-end micro service which has embedded in it multiple KYC capabilities. So the bank digital onboarding journey can have a video KYC, it can have an Aadhaar based KYC, it could likewise have a CERSAI based KYC. So for the bank, it becomes a one-stop shop with the micro services layer over there.
Along with that is where we are putting our account aggregator business, where we are looking at creating end-to-end digital lending journeys also allowing the parent company because the account aggregator is a subsidiary as per RBI regulations and requirements. The parent company will have to -- will be able to provide data analytics services called credit scoring and risk profiling.
So that is one area in which we are doing a complete vertical integration. We've already launched an API marketplace, which is unique in the fact that, one, it has a micro services layer and it also has a do-it-yourself sandbox capability, which allows the ecosystem to directly consume services and build their own stacks in terms of onboarding and digital journeys for their customers.
So that is one strong business being built on top of identity. The other area for us clearly as a strong digital public infrastructure players is our expansion into multi-sectoral open digital ecosystems as they are getting formed. So in ONDC, we are at 1 level, contributing as the only technology service provider, which powers the entire network on which the ONDC ecosystem is sitting.
So any buyers and sellers, any service provider and service seekers today go through our gateway to be able to discover each other. So the entire search runs on our gateway, which is democratic, which allows any player who's clubbed into ONDC to discover each other. So one is an infrastructure play and it will be very similar and akin to what NPCI does with UPI.
The second area, again, is that ONDC is today expanding into multiple categories. So our gateway today is category agnostic. Now whether we are enabling open finance use cases, we are enabling digital commerce use cases. We are enabling mobility use cases for transport and democratization, all these come together and run on the same gateway. Likewise, in ONDC, other than providing the foundational gateway services.
We are also providing enterprise tech, as I mentioned earlier, where we are providing capability to buyer and seller applications to, one, integrate into the gateway providing adapter services and also at the same time, building applications, seller applications, buyer applications, which is basically a model in which we design, build the technology, we have a design and implementation cost, and then it runs like a SaaS model.
So that is the expansion into ODE. E-commerce, mobility, OMDC naturally are pretty much, I would say, there's significant momentum traction over there. Some of the other foundational ecosystems in which we are contributing are at early stage. So we are working on the core as we stack with the central government. We are working likewise on health and education. So these are the other sectors into which we are expanding. And the last which you mentioned was the cloud services and Infosec. That for us is an infra play to the enterprises.
We clearly -- we are a MEITY-certified cloud. Our cloud strategy again, is differentiated. We work on an open source stack. And therefore, we provide services which on a cost basis are lower in cost than our competitors. We have a patented technology with the partner which is patent for energy conservation. So we have a cloud positioning where we are, one, looking at large-scale governance and infrastructure projects where we ourselves -- where we ourselves are contributing at a technology service provider, to provide a cloud-hosted capability. And the other area clearly for us is to target the middle market.
The small businesses, the start-up ecosystem and provide them the agility and elasticity of a crowd -- cloud-hosted infrastructure. And last but not least, the fourth expansion area for us, if you take this entire stack of six lines of business into international markets, especially a foray into the developing countries.
Okay. Just one more question, and I'll be done. I wanted to get some sense -- again, just looking at numbers on a 5-, 6-year perspective, there has been more or less -- the revenues have been flat if you were to compare to FY '18 or even the '19 numbers. Possibly you might just be ahead of that.
I just wanted to understand what led to this? Is it just -- is it due to some business model changes, price yield, yield reduction what led to kind of a 4, 5-year perspective, relatively muted revenue?
Some of them have been larger macro factors because if you go back around 4 to 5 years. For us, 2018 and 2019 became significant revenue spike years because of demonetization. As a result of it, the PAN business clearly spiked. As you remember, at that point of time, it became mandatory for anybody to operate a bank account would need a PAN declaration. So that was a big spike at that point of time.
And to historically speak about it, we used to be issuing around INR 1.5 crores to INR 2 crore PAN cards annually. That at least spiked to almost 5 crore-plus PAN Cards in a year. And now we are seeing in a way of new normal because clearly, the PAN is not a saturated market. As we look at it, we expect overall annual PAN issuance of 8 to 9 crore, which is what historically has been happening and we have a dominant market share for us if you see the numbers in FY '21, we issued around 3.3 crores -- 3.1 crores bank cards moving to 4.1 crores , and then we almost did 4.1 crores in '23.
So that is one reason of the spike. And the other one, just to also give you a sense on some of the top line metrics. There was another significant event where in our Identity Services business, UIDAI used to have a charge of INR 20 per transaction. So that was a mandated charge provided by UIDAI. And as a result, it was more like a pass-through. You would see it in the top line and the bottom line as being paid out to UIDAI.
That subsequently in last year got reduced to INR 3. So that as a result saw an adjustment in top line without impacting the bottom line because it was just a pass-through number for us. So some of these events have naturally -- you'll see a little bit of volatility or a stableness but otherwise, it has been a revenue trajectory growth. And more importantly, the underlying business drivers have shown a strong growth.
The PAN services, if I take the data for the last 3 years, just to put it in perspective, there's a CAGR of 17%. Pension services, again, new account opening. There's a 25% CAGR. And when I look at some of the digital identity numbers, E-Sign was a 54% CAGR online PAN validation, 60%, e-KYC 64% and E-Authentication, 24%. So you'll see all these areas have significantly been on the uptake. And clearly, very much aligned with the digital India progress and what's happening in terms of account opening, authentication, more people sort of adopting digital and likewise the corporates and banks also being on the same path.
[Operator Instructions]. The next question is from the line of Mitesh from Aditya.
I had just one question. What was the rationale of investing in ONDC, INR 15 crores? And what percentage stake do you get by investing INR 15 crores in ONDC?
Okay. So ONDC was a strategic investment for us. I'll just give a little bit of the historical context. We were the company which was involved in doing the first open network creation in the state of Kochi to enable the entire mobility platform over there on an open network architecture.
This was the work we did with the Bethel Foundation, and this is more about disintermediation of taxi booking using an open infrastructure. Then there was a strong search by the Government of India and the Government of India wanted to see how we can create an open infrastructure or digital infrastructure for supporting digital commerce. The clear focus was the last mile Kirana store, who does not have the ability to participate in digital commerce. Our overall penetration of digital commerce in the country remains at a mere 5% to 6%.
And that is how ONDC was conceptualized before even the coinage ONDC came in place, there was an advisory council formed by government and [indiscernible] some part of it along with [ Nandan ] leading it with Dr. Archana leading it. And then the entire gateway architecture, the network that was created for mobility was then used to enable the digital commerce ecosystem and ONDC was formed as a Section 8 company to become the network governance entity.
At that point of time, very much like NPCI, ONDC went down the line of getting investment from the market participants who will be enabled as a result of creating this entire ecosystem. So at that point of time, we, along with Quality Council of India became the two founding investors. So we at that point of time invested INR 10 crores, each as a result of which we got a founding board member position on the Board, a covenant seat on the board, along with that came a host of other market institutions right from National Stock Exchange to significant public sector banks, SIDBI, [indiscernible]. So all these entities have invested in enabling ONDC.
It is a Section 8 company. For us, it was a very strategic investment because we are powering the ecosystem, and we also see that it's a huge manifestation in enabling digital commerce and open finance in the country. So that is our alignment with ONDC as the reason for investment. So our INR 10 crore investment gives us a 5.56% holding in ONDC.
The next question is from the line of Rohan Mandora from Equirus Securities.
I just want to understand what would be your dividend policy incrementally and the cash resource that we have, how will we look to utilize that?
So thanks, Rohan, for asking this question. This is Sudeep. So the dividend policy that our company has followed. So essentially, we have so far in the history, paid this dividend consistently. That is the first statement I would like to make. For the past 2 decades, the company has consistently paid dividends.
In the last few years, if you see, on an average, about 100% -- 90% to 100% dividends have been paid. And there also was a year wherein we paid a special dividend as well in one of the years. At this point in time, the cash and equivalents that are lying in the balance sheet are close to INR 650 crores, right? And the cash that we have. Essentially, if you have seen that we have existing business verticals and also we have -- we have plans to continuously grow our new business verticals as well. So this cash essentially gives us the firepower and fuel to grow our new business verticals because some of the investments, whatever is required to support any of these businesses.
And also, in case there are any future opportunities arise to grow the business inorganically. So we do have that firepower in our chest.
Sure, sir, incrementally, can we speak 25% to 100% dividend payout?
At this point in time, there is no change that the shareholders have proposed. Of course, there is a dividend payment policy and which means that we definitely have the cash accruals as well as the profits to support. And until and unless there is a change in that policy, we expect that this should continue.
I think recently there was some news article wherein it is talked about that for telecom, all the incrementally KYCs from 1st of April should be electronic. So just want to understand how can that help in our business, what kind of an impact do we foresee from that?
I haven't seen the particular comment, but clearly, any sector, which mandates digital onboarding of customers. For us, naturally, it means a strong business base over there for us. Any E-KYC and E-Authentication is a line of business which we provide to the market. to enable any of these entities. But we'll definitely look at that. So currently, I can't comment on the specific article. But definitely, it will be -- if it is there then it's a strong growth potential for us.
And so in terms of the cloud business, how should we look at the second half going ahead? If you can just talk about the pipeline of the customers and the visibility of conversion?
So if you look at our cloud business, we've got some early wins in the business in various sectors. Actually, it has been a cross-sectoral sort of foray. Our MEITY certification just came through last month. And that, therefore, naturally opens for us new markets because clearly, to participate in any government projects, any sort of government mandates MEITY certification was critical, and there was significant work done to comply with the MEITY certification requirements, and that is now in place with us.
So at this stage, we have running -- we have customers who are contributing to the bottom line. But we still see that that's very early stage. We have a clearly well defined strategy in terms of the segments we are going after. So I can give you a sense of what we are doing in the process. So we are building our own sales teams. We are likewise with a focus on working against small businesses and start-ups, also building a strong channel network, where we are tying up with channel partners. A few partnerships have already been done, and they are out in the market, and we've had a few early wins over there.
And then maybe being MEITY certification being there, we are actively now also participating in various RFPs, that is a requirement of a cloud-hosted infrastructure. The other area where we are also looking parallelly is any global mandates. We are looking at the structure of the solution and also putting forth Protean cloud-hosted infra solution over there. So I think it's early for me to say exactly what the sort of numbers would be by the end of the year.
But clearly, there is strong groundwork happening on them and we see activity and we are currently already dropping revenues at an early stage in this business.
Sir, just a follow-up on this. On the MEITY certification that we have got. Now typically, when we are pitching the cloud Protean cloud to the government, how much time does it take for the government business to convert? And are the likes of Amazon, Google, Microsoft also having MEITY certifications?
Yes. Most of the hyperscalers have. I will not be able to specifically say for each one. But yes, they are also MEITY-certified clouds. We do have naturally the additional advantage of being an indigenous cloud offering because it is a made-in-India cloud. It is also energy efficient. So there are a few important aspects that we see in terms of ESG compliance better energy conservation, made-in-India cloud and MEITY certification being a very specific certification is also in place.
So we do see ourselves naturally having our own positioning as far as even work with the government is concerned. The government RFPs, as you are familiar, definitely there is a period once bidders put out for the RFP, bidders to come into play and evaluation process. So generally, these are 3- to 4-month cycles normally, which take place for any RFP to be opened and then concluded and the mandates to be given out.
[Operator Instructions]. The next question is from the line of Akshat Bharadwaj, who's an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Congratulations on the good set of results. So I just wanted to understand that you already had a very good financial sheet and like a good firepower to do any CapEx or anything. So what were your key takeaways from the IPO. So you already had the money to do any expansion projects. So why go for an IPO? And what were the benefits of it?
Akshat, good question. The IPO was 100% offer for sale. The company, as you know, has always had very strong marquee investors. So before IPO, we had 15 marquee investors, which included large market infrastructure institutions like the National Stock Exchange, [ SOTI ].
Similarly, we had a large public and private sector banks as part of our [ cap table ]. And we also had India and [indiscernible], now 361 as part of our cap table. There are funds that invested in the company. So it was 100% offer for sale. It was triggered, one, by the need we said that as we are expanding into new areas, we felt it's important that we list the company and investors likewise wanted to also have a listing event in mind.
So overall, 7 out of the 15 participants partially divested and the overall dilution was only 15%. Everybody continues to remain invested in the company. They believe in the growth story and it was primarily driven by this need to list and also the need for some of the investors to create a liquidity event.
Okay. And just one more question around the gross. So I see the processing charge as a percentage of revenue has increased. So why is that? And secondly, can you throw some light on how can we expect the employee cost as a percentage of revenue going forward?
Okay. So yes, this is Sudeep here. So there are two questions. Let me answer them in sequence. In terms of the gross margins, so gross margins basically come from the respective business verticals. That is, if you look at our existing verticals, which is tax services business, pension services business and our identity services. Within that, in the pension services, this is the most -- most accretive in terms of the gross margin.
And when you talk about tech services, wherein we have to run all these locations and the franchises and we paid the processing charges, the processing charge component in the tech services business is the highest. And therefore, if we -- in terms of -- if you look at our overall financial performance, Tech Services has given the maximum output or the higher growth component in terms of the overall financial performance and the processing charges being the highest in the tech services vertical.
Therefore, you see a higher component in the overall gross profit mix. I hope that answers your question.
And the second one around the employee cost, like how do you expect it? Like I am thinking that the company is a human capital-intensive company. So any light on this?
So if you look at our overall financial statements, so you will consider that March 2023 had around INR 120 crores of employment costs. And if you look at the current run rate, this is going around INR 150 crores to INR 160 crores of total cost. So yes, the -- we've been in a technology-driven business. So basically, we hired technology talent who then build technology that sells in the marketplace and we get our revenues. And therefore, if you notice that the three business verticals growing to six, has definitely required incremental investments in the manpower and talent that the company has done.
However, as we move forward from here, we don't expect a similar growth year-on-year on this particular line. Whatever investments had to be made. So we have largely made in this particular line. And from here on, you should see largely a sort of flattish kind of growth linked with the economy and inflation.
The next question is from the line of Santosh Kumar Kesari from Kesari Finance.
So I have a couple of questions. One is, that you can share the revenue breakup for your different teams of businesses. your PAN and tax services, LP, [indiscernible], EDA charges. And the four verticals that you spoke about, if you can share the revenue breakup of second quarter of 2024. That would be helpful.
Sorry. The questions haven't been very clear, if you can be a bit loud? So for revenue breakup, I'll invite you to the presentation slide, if you look at the -- let me go to the -- if you slide -- not a problem. Yes. In the slide, you will see that around 50% of the total revenue is coming from tax services, around 30% is coming from the pension services. and around 10%, 9% approximately will be from the identity services, and the rest are basically new booming businesses.
Okay. Okay. So then I have a few other questions. like the tax services, as you could see in the prospectus, it was -- it is actually an agreement with the government. Now is this agreement due for renewal? And what is the timeline that the government gives? Is it likely that this service goes to some other vendor than Protean, what could be the outcome, dependent on your press RFQ or you being an old vendor, the government will continue with the contract. So basically, we are looking at the revenue visibility a year forward.
So Santosh, let me take that question. And if you see in the tax business, this was a business we were -- we received through nomination way back in 2003. At that point of time, we were a market infrastructure [indiscernible] institution and MSDN. And we got this landed through the central government established [ Dr. Vijay ] Chemical Committee, who saw the work we had done in the space of capital markets, and we got this mandate.
Since 2003, this is a mandate which has been renewed 3 to 4 years. And underlying to this mandate is the fact that we -- why we designed the entire tax information network. For PAN issuance, we hold the entire goal post, the entire database. So there's naturally infrastructure investment. This entire database today is available 24x7 to the BFSI sector for people to come in and do transactions.
So naturally, there's a layer of security or layers of security around it, uptime or resilience. So there's a significant amount of technology and infrastructure, which has been invested in building and hosting and continuously keeping this database secured and while at the same time, servicing the market.
If you note, we have indicated that we have till date done almost 7 billion online PAN validations. And at times, in a single day, we've supported more than 10 million transactions in a day. So that is the sort of infrastructure which is in place, number one. And number two, being the E-Governance service, when we established or we got the mandate for PAN issuance. We've also established a Pan-India network for providing assisted services for issuance or receiving applications for a PAN Card.
So we've also done a Pan-India network of 166,000 points of service where you can come and apply for a PAN Card and also our other businesses apply for a pension account or file a tax return. So there is a significant infrastructure, both physical and digital, which is in place. So my only comment would be that for us, this contract has been renewed subsequently on periodic basis, since 2003, our last renewal was this year.
And that has been the trajectory. I'm not going to comment on the forward statement over here. But there is significant entry barriers for any new participant to suddenly come in and build the entire infrastructure, build the entire physical network. So to that extent, we do see entry barriers to somebody a fresh come in and do this business.
Okay. Okay. That makes a lot of sense. And sir, can I ask a few more questions? Because since this is the first call or allow me to send an e-mail with my questions and it can be answered. Is it fine?
Sure, you can send us an email.
Absolutely. there is an Investor Relations contact e-mail as well as the mobile numbers, which are given. So feel free to reach out.
Okay. Great. And can I ask a couple of questions, even now?
Sure.
Yes. Second is that on digitalization, I can see as you pointed out, the revenue is very less 1%. And even on [ e- ] Governance, these is hardly any revenue, that is fine, that is understood. But the point is that are we getting inquiries from other countries government asking, [ developing ]countries, as you said in the beginning that we are prospecting our solutions to some developing countries.
So are you getting inquiries because I also note that you incorporated a company in UAE or Dubai. it was there in the quarter 2 results. So there must be some intention behind doing that. So are we getting some [indiscernible] inquiries? And can we expect some business in the next quarter?
Sure. So let me add this, actually, most of these -- most of these interventions, which we are taking into the international markets are on the lines of foundational digital infrastructure. And as a result in these countries, when you are looking at a national ID project or talking about building an integrated tax accounting system, or doing something on the space of social security and welfare. All of these are therefore being run at a government level.
So these are not so much B2B or corporate pitches. These are mostly at the government level. Now to give you a sense, there are today, countries, specifically in Africa and Southeast Asia, who are clearly looking at building foundational stats. So your first point to save is their interest. Yes, a lot of interest and a lot of activity happening in these countries.
We ourselves have participated in 20 RFPs over the last 3 to 4 quarters, which just shows that a lot of countries are thinking. And considering that it is a foundational infrastructure investment for these countries, there's a significant amount of ground work which goes into it. We are engaged with countries to do assessment, to do gap analysis, to suggest the framework of what could be a possible solution because each country is at a different maturity level in terms of their current systems.
So even before an RFP is put out, there is significant, if you may, industry and partner consultation being done by these countries, and we are actively involved over there. So we do believe that some of these will fructify. I won't be able to put a mark to it, but I can definitely mention from a pure quantitative perspective that we have more than 10-plus bids in which we have been shortlisted. And we hope that decisions are taken and some mandates come through in the coming period.
And over and above that, the other aspect with regards to the company in Dubai. So we are proposing to set up a holding company in Dubai, which were we house our international operations. because a lot of these countries, when you are getting a mandate to do any of these infrastructure projects, there is the need of having either a local operating entity or an entity in partnership with a local partner.
So we'll house this entire business under the entity in Dubai. And that, in a way, will then take care of all international mandates as we get them across countries.
All right, throws a lot of light. And on cloud sources, when you're competing with the likes of Amazon or Google. So are we giving the services of these companies to government entities or we are owning our own cloud and sort of within our entire cloud services end to end to them? What kind of proposition we have [indiscernible]?
Our larger focus at this stage, Santosh is to provide infrastructure as a service.
We are likewise looking at providing platform as a service. So these are the areas we have built now I would say that there are segments streams identified. which are not in a way targets for the hyperscalers.
Secondly, there are some challenges we see in commoditized solutions because if you go to any of the hyperscaler clouds, while you do get an original rather than the original engagement comes with three credits and all. But down the line, the way they are structured, you end up building your applications at all, which are then become very vendor-locked in. So again, as I mentioned earlier, one part of our [indiscernible] strategy in approaching the cloud business was to go with an open source stack.
So we are, one, finding our own target segmentation points. And secondly, we are saying how do we differentiate ourselves from the big hyperscalers by providing a vendor-agnostic framework in which people have the choice to move in and out, and their applications don't get locked on to our cloud provision. So we are putting a few of these things which we have seen as frictions in the ecosystem around cloud, and we are, therefore, working on this strategy to sort of identify our markets and build our own share over there.
Okay. Okay. Sir, then I understand that the...
Mr. Kesari, may we request that you return to the question queue for follow-up questions as there are several of the participants waiting for their turn.
The next question is from the line of Rushabh Doshi from Nimrati investment Advisors LLP.
Congrats on your IPO. So I have two questions. But just before that, I wanted to understand, like the number which we gave in the presentation, the number of PAN Card process. So are these new PAN registration or they also include, let's say, corrections or name changes.
So these are the new PAN cards.
And so my first question here is that we have seen that you would have also another thing, which I guess you guys have launched is the instant PAN and also in the PPT, you've mentioned that the growth is coming more on the online side and referring to Slide 22, the first half graph. So is there a material price change when, let's say, the PAN is issued offline versus online.
Okay. So in terms of the -- so there are two ways that a person can get a PAN. One is a E-PAN and second is a physical PAN. In terms of E-PAN this is obviously completely online. And for this, the pricing is far lesser. However, the -- ultimately, whenever people require a physical PAN, the physical PAN, whether it is requested through or an online channel, the pricing remains the same.
However, at the same time, the company's margin is much better in the -- while issuing the online PAN cards.
Okay. So online is payment [instant PAN] right? the one which is linked on the income tax portal.
So the instant PAN is basically an E-Pan facility, which is provided whereby the person can just get a PAN number and not PAN Card. So see our distinction of online versus off-line for us is how is the channel processing the application. So what we term is online is where we are not having any paper at all. So this will still be assisted. Somebody can walk into a last mile PAN facilitation center to apply for a PAN but they will go through a completely online process and no paper will be submitted.
So that, as Sudeep mentioned, also makes it more -- the margins are better because you are not handling any paper, no paper is moving up and down the value chain. There is no storage of a physical document. So that is our terminology when we split between online and offline services. And online can also mean a completely direct self-service journey which is not assisted. The instant PAN which you see on the tax website is basically just an E-Pan issuance. And in our country, if you note that most of the time when we are using our PAN Card, we have to either give a self- certified PAN Card copy even in bank account opening, that is what is required, while subsequently, the validation is done digitally.
So we've also realized that most of the people who use the tax website for getting an E-PAN, still come back to us for issuance of a physical card. So that is another, in a way, model where the E-PAN can be issued by the tax department, but the physical cards will be issued by us. And tax website today is in single digits in terms of their market share. So the larger market share sits with us and with the UTI, which is the other entity which is doing PAN Card issuance. And we have a dominant market share between the two of us.
Yes. And my second question was like, let's say, the volumes which you have posted, they have almost become [ 4x ], let's say, online PAN, where it's basically [indiscernible] identification. My question here is that are the revenues moving in a similar trajectory or is there a significant [indiscernible] reduction for these services.
So these are largely -- if you may, these are all very low value, high-volume businesses, right? Because if you see the sheer underlying numbers, these are huge numbers, we are talking in millions even per day per month. So these are very low value businesses. But to your point, for us, it's a flattish pricing. These are B2B services.
So largely, it is a corporate or a bank or a TSP who's on the other side who's consuming these services. So therefore, it is, as I said, at low pricing point, but at the same time, I would like to highlight that is where we are getting into more value-added services. So from just providing foundational APIs for doing the E-KYC and E-Sign. We are moving up the stack and putting all these services together bundling them into micro services, where we can then a claim differentiated premium for offering of value-added services of end-to-end digital onboarding or end-to-end enablement of a digital lending journey.
And that is where you see your ability to price and complete the market. Whereas at the foundational level, it is a commoditized service.
But as over the past 2 or 3 years, like on a CAGR basis, the volumes have gone up by 56%. and around 20% -- 24% for E-Authentications. But what would be your revenue growth over a 2 or 3-year CAGR?
So revenue growth over here is -- will be around 8% to 10% overall because as the overall digitization in the economy is growing, the use cases are growing and therefore, the volumes expected any new entity which is coming up, they are likely to give huge orders, for instance, someone comes with a INR 3 crore authentications order.
And therefore, in that, there is a bulk pricing also, which is of -- and this is, as we just explained that this is a high volume and high volume, high margin, but at the same time, lower pricing model.
So you can just correct me if I am wrong. Like are the prices down around 80%, 85% since 2021?
In? Sorry?
In E-KYC or E-Sign [indiscernible].
No, it is not. If you remember, I mentioned another point in response to another question. The UIDAI pricing changed. So UIDAI had come with a pricing structure saying for providing any E-Auth or E-KYC service UIDAI was charging a rate of INR 20. So that was a pass-through. So we were naturally showing it in our top line, but then it would just be a pass-through in our expense side. That number last year in October. For the year...
October '22.
October '22 was actually reduced to INR 3. So as a result, let's say, I'm charging a customers say INR 20 plus my own charge of x amount. So it was INR 20 plus x, it became INR 3 plus x. So as a result, the revenue numbers showed a dip whereas actually, it was just the pass-through number to UIDAI. So that also you would see impacted some of the charts if you see the growth factors. But the underlying number is actually the slide you referred to.
So a number of tractions have been significantly going up at a very high CAGR, the compression in price is not to that extent as it looks because it was more the UIDAI price impact, which brought it down subsequently.
Okay. And in online PAN verification -- this will be my last question, like how many are the prices because that is the biggest one in terms of volume.
In terms of online verification.
So the online pan verification pricing, this range is anywhere between INR 0.03 to INR 0.10, depending upon what we are -- basically who we are dealing with, and there are multiple slabs there as well. But I mean, as we see that there are almost INR 240 crore transactions that went passed last year and as the online PAN verification use cases grow, this trend, if you look at the first year -- first half of the performance, this is even bigger numbers, right?
We would take that as our last question. I would now like to hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
Yes. Thank you very much. I think it was pretty clearly well thought out questions, and we were happy to answer them because if we have a better reflection of the business -- the underlying business model. We continue to remain excited in the lines of business we are in, where there are strong tailwinds in how the businesses are going along with the Digital India vision. And thank you very much, and we hope to be back in the next quarter with the next set of results. Thank you.
Thank you. On behalf of Protean eGov Technologies Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.