Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to Protean eGov Technologies Limited Q3 and 9-month FY 2026 earnings conference call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touchtone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Ms. Pushpa Mani, Head Investor Relations, for her opening remarks. Thank you, and over to you, ma'am.
Thanks, Ikra. Good afternoon, everyone. I welcome you all to the Q3 and 9-month FY 2026 results discussion. You must have received the results, press release, and investor presentation of the company, which is available on BSE and NSE, as well as on the company's website. As usual, we will start the forum with the opening remarks by our Managing Director and CFO, and then we will open the floor for the question and answer session. If any of your questions remain unanswered due to paucity of time, you may reach out to us afterwards. The management on today's call would be represented by Mr. Suresh Sethi, MD and CEO, Mr. V. Easwaran, ED and COO, Mr. Rakesh Dosi, CBO, Mr. Sandeep Mantri, CFO, and myself.
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 these statements are reasonable. However, these statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties that may lead to different results. With this, I invite our MD, Mr. Suresh Sethi, to address us all. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Pushpa, thank you very much. Good afternoon, everyone, and many thanks for joining us today. As India's digital economy continues to expand, the importance of trusted population-scale digital infrastructure has never been greater. We remain deeply embedded in this journey in supporting governments, institutions, enterprises to resilient platforms that combine scale, security, and reliability. Against this backdrop, I'm pleased to share that Protean delivered a steady and resilient performance in quarter three of FY 2026. The revenue from operations grew 13% year-over-year to INR 229 crores. This was driven by a continued gain in our tax services business and increasing contribution from new businesses. The EBITDA grew 34% year-over-year to INR 46 crores, with margins expanding by 335 basis points to 19%.
Adjusted profit after tax stood at INR 26 crore, resulting in a PAT margin of 10.9%. Our balance sheet remains a key strength. As of December 31st, we had over INR 800 crore of cash and cash equivalents, and we continue to remain debt-free. This financial position, goes without saying, gives us the ability to invest selectively while maintaining long-term discipline. Now turning to our core businesses. Tax services, we continue to strengthen our leadership position, and the same happened during this quarter. We issued over INR 1.1 crore PAN cards and consolidated our market share at 59%. The growth was supported by an overall increase in PAN issuance, following the extension of the Aadhaar-PAN linkage deadline, along with the sequential gain in market share.
This reflects the trust that citizens and institutions place in our systems and our ability to deliver reliably at a national scale. The CRA business demonstrated steady performance. At a macro level, the pension segment is entering a new phase of structured growth. Multiple regulatory reforms have been introduced, primarily focusing on significantly expanding pension penetration, particularly in the non-government sector. The regulator has guided a shift towards an AUM-linked charge structure with the objective of increasing overall assets under management. The introduction of multi-scheme framework and withdrawal flexibility are some of the important steps towards creating sustainable economic and broader coverage over the long term. We onboarded over INR 35 lakh new subscribers during this quarter and captured 94% of the incremental market additions. We continue to hold a dominant 98% market share across NPS, APY, and UPS.
Coming to our identity business, we saw strong volume growth across online PAN verification, eKYC, and Aadhaar Auth. This was in tandem with the rising demand for digital identity solutions across sectors. While revenues were impacted by slab-based pricing and competitive pressures, our focus remains on scaling volumes, expanding market share, and growing value-added offerings. Our new businesses are now beginning to make a visible impact. In the first nine months of FY 2026, they contributed in double digits, 11% of operating revenue, compared to 4% in FY 2025. We continue to expand across multiple open digital ecosystems, spanning insurance, health, agriculture, education, and identity. This diversification strengthens our role as a platform builder across multiple high-growth sectors. Further, we have successfully completed the first phase of the UIDAI mandate and operationalized 34 Aadhaar Seva Kendras across 19 states and union territories.
Revenue generation has commenced, and early performance is in line with expectations, providing visibility on stable and recurring revenues. Further, we also expanded our international footprint. We won a strategic-level national mandate valued at INR 25 crore to implement the digital public infrastructure for the Ethiopian agricultural ecosystem. As a system integrator, Protean will deliver an AI-powered digital platform covering end-to-end design, development, deployment, and support. With this engagement, we have now secured four international mandates across three markets. Our turnkey projects pipeline remains strong. The unexecuted order book stands at over INR 1,600 crore, nearly, nearly twice our annual revenue. These opportunities are largely anchored in digital identity and open digital ecosystems. During the quarter, we also made a strategic investment. We acquired a 4.9% stake in NSDL Payments Bank.
As India's digital banking ecosystem scales up, payment banks are evolving into technology-led platforms, driving last-mile financial inclusion. NSDL Payments Bank clearly exemplifies this shift. Our investment positions us to collaborate closely with the banking team in co-creating replicable and certified digital banking technologies, with the ability to deploy them across the entire BFSI industry and secure cross-sell opportunities. The bank's focus on secure and accessible services for underserved segments also aligns with our broader commitment to build inclusive financial infrastructure. To conclude, Protean is poised for sustained growth. We are backed by strong fundamentals, deep domain expertise, and a growing portfolio of transformative initiatives. As we look ahead, we remain steadfast in our commitment to advancing inclusive growth, strengthening India's digital infrastructure, and creating long-term value for our stakeholders. Thank you for your continued trust and support.
With this, I will now hand over to Sandeep to take you through the financials in more detail. Thank you.
Thank you, Suresh, and good afternoon, everyone. During the quarter, I guess India's digital public infrastructure ecosystem continued to gain momentum across all sectors, be it education, health, infrastructure, identity, tax, financial services, and everywhere. I think we can see the digital public infrastructure ecosystem continues to, you know, grow at a steady rate. During the quarter, Aadhaar authentication and eKYC volumes remained strong, reflecting sustained adoption of digital identity across government and private sector use cases. In the tax ecosystem, increasing use of data analytics and tighter PAN-Aadhaar integrations are driving higher compliances and formalization. Overall, policy momentum around interoperable population-scale digital registries continue to expand the opportunity landscape for trusted technology providers like us. Now, I will take you through the financial performance for the quarter and nine months, and also share some perspective on what is driving these numbers.
For the third quarter, revenue from operation stood at INR 229 crore, compared to INR 202 crore in quarter three of FY 2025, which is a 13% YoY growth, mainly driven by tax services revenue and gaining momentum from the new businesses. EBITDA for the quarter is stood at INR 46 crore, making a growth of 34% on a year-on-year basis, driven by higher operational efficiencies. EBITDA margin for this quarter is stood at, 19% , increased by 335 basis point on a YoY basis from INR 35 crore last year. With an EBITDA margin of 19% , 19% , reflecting a 335 basis point year-on-year expansion, adjusted profit after tax for the quarter is stood at INR 26 crore, with a PAT margin of 10.9%. The adjustment was for one-time, statutory impact of INR 4 crore due to, new labor code.
If you look at nine months financials, revenue stood at INR 690 crore, compared to INR 619 crore in the corresponding period last year, which reflected 12% year-on-year increase. EBITDA for the period is stood at INR 135 crore, with EBITDA margin of 18%, which is a growth of 103 basis points on a YoY basis. Adjusted profit after tax is stood at INR 74 crore. Overall, the number reflect consistency and disciplined execution across businesses. From an operating perspective, PAN volume increase during the quarter is rightly said by Suresh, on the back of sequential gain in the market share and overall growth in PAN issuance. Pension enrollment during the quarter remained healthy, supported by strong addition across schemes.
Identity-related transactions such as eKYC, Aadhaar authentication, and online PAN verification continued to track broader digital adoption trend, with the growth in volumes across most of the ID products. New businesses are also becoming more and more visible in the numbers, with 11% contribution to revenue in nine months, as compared to just 4% in last year. The contribution from new businesses is increasing on the back of multiple RFP projects won over the last couple of years, now moving into active execution. With respect to our Aadhaar project, it is progressing well as planned. We have completed the first phase of the rollout, with 34 Aadhaar Seva Kendras now operational and beginning to contribute to revenue. The early traction we are seeing is encouraging and providing us improved visibility on a steady and sustainable revenue stream as far as ASK business is concerned.
From a balance sheet perspective, we remain in a strong position and continue to operate with zero debt, with INR 800 crore in cash and marketable securities, which gives us flexibility to invest in technology, capacity and acquisition while maintaining a financial discipline. During the quarter, we continued to invest in readiness for large mandates, including technology upgrades and selective capacity build-out. These investments are aligned with supporting growth as projects scale and move into larger phases of execution. To, you know, sum up, the third quarter reflect steady execution, improving operating leverage, and a gradually broadening revenue mix. As newer engagements mature alongside our core businesses, we believe the company is well positioned for the period ahead. With that, we can open the floor to Q&A session. Thank you so much.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question, press star and one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Bajrang Bafna from Sunidhi Securities. Please go ahead.
Congratulations for good operating performance for this quarter, sir. My first question pertains to if you see the run rate now, you know, we see for last two quarters, the EBITDA run rate is almost INR 30 crore per quarter, you know, and which is almost we were running at 16, 17 crores of EBITDA for previous four to five quarters. So we are almost back what we were there in probably a year or two years back, kind of EBITDA run rate. So now with the INR 1,600 crore order pipeline that we are having, and even if our traditional business, you know, grows steadily, maybe 8%-10%, but the new business, which is catching up faster, what sort of run rate, you know, we can expect going into coming quarters?
So if you can just broadly guide on that count in terms of new business propositions that we are having, will be really helpful. My second question pertains to other income. Still, we are holding INR 800 crore sort of cash, but, in this quarter, the other income has fallen to almost INR 10 crore. Any specific reason for that, if you could clarify? Thank you.
So, thanks, Bajrang, for the questions. Great questions. With respect to run rate, you know, we are right now running at about INR 230 crore- INR 250 crore for the last two, three quarters. This run rate is going to continue, and I guess, you know, with the ASK revenue comes into play, after a couple of quarters on a full scale basis, we would have, we will have, additions of another, you know, INR 40 crore-INR 50 crore into run rate, for sure. So INR 220 crore-INR 250 crore is the run rate, which is currently, but I think once the ASK project is, you know, fully operational, we would have more, revenue, which, you know, the run rate can go up to INR 270 crore-INR 280 crore.
This will be visible from next quarter? Because I think this quarter was the rollout of the ASK centers, Aadhaar centers. Maybe next quarter we'll be having-
We have to roll out 190 centers. Out of this, 34 are already rolled out in this quarter. By September, we should be able to roll out everything. I think from a Q3 or Q4 of next of this year, I mean, next year, you should see the run rate going up significantly.
So close to INR 550 crore out of our quarter run rate will be there once we roll out the entire 190.
No, no. It is 50-50, close to about INR 270 crore-INR 280 crore per quarter.
No, the revenue run rate. I think it's INR 1,200 crore order spanning for five years, right?
Yeah, it's five years. Yeah. So per year it will be INR 200 crore, no?
Correct.
INR 200 crore.
INR 50 crore per quarter, that is what I was saying.
INR 50 crore per quarter.
Broadly, right?
Yeah, yeah.
Yes. And sir, other income part?
So other income, I think, you know, whenever you see a spike in other income, it is because of non-treasury income, which is, you know, some write back or some interest on refunds, which we, you know, collect or some reversal of provisions. These are the other elements. Otherwise, normally, other income is still at INR 15 crore-INR 16 crore always.
Yeah, so we have seen INR 10 crore this quarter. That was little surprising to me, because even if 800-
INR 14 crore. This quarter is INR 14 crore.
Okay, okay. INR 14 crore.
Yeah. So normally it is always normal treasury income is always at this level.
Okay, sir. Thank you. I'll be in queue, sir.
Thank you so much.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rohan M. from Equirus Securities. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, sir. Thanks for the opportunity. Sir, we are seeing a good number of exits in the senior management of the company. So just want to understand, like, what's happening there and what is driving the exits at the senior management level?
Rohan, this we had also spoken last time, Rohan, just to update you on that. I think largely, a few people have moved because they had reached retirement age. It just that it coincided and happened at the same time. And secondly, a couple of exits were planned because, as we got into a very ramped up, order book on our external orders, especially on the project side, we have further, restructured our teams to create a very strong delivery vertical for execution. And that is where we had merged a few departments and created, you know, sort of more strength and alignment over there. So as a result, a couple of people had to move out as part of a planned transition. But otherwise, I don't think it is.
If you look at it individually, three people actually retired over the course of the year, and there were a couple of others who moved out because of structured realignment, and that was the case. So it's not, you know, a bulk sort of movement in that sense, but triggered for different reasons.
Sure. Secondly, sir, on the new business initiatives, like we had seen an uptick in 2Q and again in 3Q, there's a decline on revenue. So INR 43 crore coming down to INR 21 crore, on the others overall. So just want to understand, like, how do we recognize the revenue? Because if it's a project-based revenues, do we not recognize a similar amount every quarter, or there are certain phases that we complete, after that, we get revenue recognition on that project? How will this work for us to get a better clarity on how one should see the visibility on the revenues from the new lines of business, sir?
You know, new businesses consist of two type of revenue stream. One is the RFP or project-based revenue, which is more like a turnkey project wherein we have to deliver, and second is your regular project. If it is a regular project, then you would see similar kind of revenue every quarter, every month, you know, every period. If it is a RFP-led project, it is based on, you know, what milestone we are delivering and what kind of cost we are incurring for that project, or what kind of effort we are putting into that project based on the project plan, and accordingly, the revenue gets recognized. This is in line with, you know, accounting guidance.
Sure. And on the CERSAI project, like, I think there's a contribution last quarter. So was there any contribution this quarter as well from the CERSAI project?
Of course, yes. This quarter also there, but last quarter was a bit heavy because we were, you know, we were to deliver certain milestones. This quarter, it is more like a expense-to-revenue ratio.
Got it. Thirdly, in terms of the NPS business, the subscriber addition seems to have fallen in Q3. Any comments that management has on how one should look at the subscriber additions in this business going ahead?
I don't think subscriber addition is fallen. It is only because we clearly stated in our press release also that it is not a subscriber base which is fallen. Actually, we have added about INR 35 lakh subscribers this quarter also, which is in line with our, you know, quarterly growth. Every quarter, we are adding approximately INR 35 lakh-INR 40 lakh subscribers. So it is not that subscribers have fallen, but there was a pricing restructuring during the quarter by PFRDA, in order to just to get the ecosystem larger and, you know, bigger. They have, you know, to somehow restructure the pricing for various segment of the pension ecosystem, and therefore, this quarter is more should be looked like a more a temporary, you know, in terms of revenue.
But I think in the longer run, we should, you know, garner more and more revenue from the pension ecosystem, because in the private pension ecosystem, we are moving to AUM-based. So AUM grows, and the revenue grows. This is the kind of, you know, pricing structure which is approved by PFRDA.
Sorry. So earlier, we had only linked to number of subscribers. Now there is a change in an AUM link. Revenue stream is also coming?
For private, for private and non-government sector.
Okay.
Pricing structure, pricing structure, Rohan, has been changed because the whole idea was the regulator also wanted to push for further expansion penetration, and the pricing structure is now AUM-linked. It was earlier also, but now it incentivizes higher AUMs, and therefore, as AUMs grow, you will see an improvement in the pricing, you know, structure over there. So that is what Sandeep mentioned. And while at the leading business driver level, the number of subscribers and acquisitions continue to be as they are, and we are seeing stability over there. Some of the pricing impact came because of the restructure in pricing. But with the market opening up, we see this getting mitigated and it will pick up. Actually, it will give a lot more opportunity to grow the business over here.
Yeah. It is a very temporary thing for one or two questions.
Sure. So, so the account opening and the transaction link charges has not seen any change. It's only the AMC charges that has seen a change here, and it's moved to AUM link.
No, no, the whole structure is changed now.
We'll share the detail.
Okay.
We will share the detail. If you want more details, then we can share it with you.
Sure. Sure. Sure. And so lastly, on the cash that we carry on the balance sheet, the thought process a couple of years ago was that we may need to invest on the cloud and other businesses which are capital heavy, and right now, some of those businesses are not picking up. So any plans to pay out some extra dividends, or what is the thought process of retaining the cash on the balance sheet?
We are already paying, you know, one of the healthiest dividend in the industry. I think 35%-40% of our profit, we are already paying as a dividend. What we are thinking of in this case is, as you know, we explained in the last call as well, this case will be used, one, in funding the working capital for all these large projects, which we are winning, like CERSAI or Bima Sugam, or, you know, couple of projects which are in future. So one, it will be, you know, we need working capital funding for those. Second, we are also actively look at while there is nothing which is in advanced stage, but we actively look at, you know, opportunities to, you know, expand or grow our, you know, our current scale.
So that will be the one use case for the case which is, you know, lying in the company. And, I think dividend we are paying decently, so I don't think, you know, we are increasing the dividend payout. There is no thought process on that.
Sure. Thanks. Thanks for the opportunity.
Thank you. Before we take the next question, a reminder to all the participants, if you wish to ask a question, please press star and one. The next question is from the line of Divij Punjabi from Banyan Tree Advisors. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Thanks for the opportunity. Just a few questions. One is, on the consolidated margin trajectory, can you give some understanding on how this may look going ahead? We've been seeing some margin expansion, but wanted to get a sense of where this will go in the next few quarters. Next is, on the RFP businesses, how much, directionally, how much, revenue are we expecting to come through from the RFP businesses? This quarter, it was expected that ASK, CERSAI and Bima Sugam would come in, but there was a sequential decline. So just wanted to get an understanding on that.
And third is, given the cash that we have on the balance sheet, closer to INR 800 crore, and given that the stock price has corrected quite a bit, are we looking at any kind of a buyback?
Sure. So if you, if you see consolidated margin, EBITDA margin, we have consistently, you know, for last two, three quarters, our margins are in the range between 17%-19%. Previously, it fell down to, you know, 14%, 15% also. If we see our business EBIT margin, which is, you know, without other income, this quarter, we have, we have delivered almost like 9% business EBIT margin, which is kind of, you know, we are growing every, on a quarter-on-quarter basis. So there is a sequential also improvement also, and there is a YoY improvement also, as far as the margin trajectory is concerned. I, I think with the, with, you know, once, if we are growing the revenue, the margins are going to improve in, you know, in longer run.
So what we are looking at, we have, you know, said in last few calls as well, what we are looking at is expanding these margins through optimum utilization of resources through cost optimization, efficiency improvement, all those, you know, triggers are there in the company, and we are working working on all these aspects wherein we can improve margins significantly from here. With respect to RFP revenues, so RFP, again, as I, you know, said in the last last participant also asked the same question on RFP. RFP has two kind of project. One is a regular project, which is like ASK, like Aadhaar Seva Kendra-like project, wherein we will get, you know, steady revenue every quarter. And then there are turnkey project, when the revenue get recognized only when, you know, certain milestones are, you know, achieved.
So, you know, for those turnkey projects, there may be, you know, certain lumpiness, wherein in one quarter you may see higher revenue, in other quarter you may see lower revenue. But for Aadhaar kind of project, you would see sustainable, steady revenue quarter-on-quarter basis. Having said that, as I said, you know, earlier also, we have 190 center mandate for Aadhaar Seva Kendras. Once that is implemented on a full scale basis, we will have about INR 200 crore revenue increase on a year-on-year basis, on an annual basis. With, what was your third question?
Uh, buyback.
No. So, as of now, there is no thought process. There is no plan to, you know, for buyback, but we would definitely consider and, you know, put the-
Sure. And just one more question, if I can add. Mr. Suresh mentioned that there's some kind of a restructuring that is happening. So can you directionally give us some quantitative understanding of what this restructuring would look like in terms of various cost items?
So Divij, currently, as I mentioned, the team has been restructured already. We have a strong management team in place, and we don't envisage any large-scale changes coming, going forward. This was, as I mentioned, last year was, as you've seen, we went into three very large-scale projects, whether it was revamping the CERSAI KYC stack, or it was building the DPI for the insurance industry. And third was the large UIDAI mandate to build Aadhaar Seva Kendras across 188 districts. So that is where we looked at certain level of restructuring. The complete restructuring has been carried out. We have strong leaders in place, and there should not be any, any, you know, sort of changes or restructures after this.
Sure. Thank you.
Thank you. A reminder to all the participants, if you wish to ask a question, please press star and one. The next question is from the line of Avikshit Vijay from Magnus Hardware. Please go ahead. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, am I audible?
Can you please speak a little louder?
Am I audible now?
Yeah, please.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Yeah. So my first question was related to the previous participant about the existing run rate. I quite didn't catch what the management was trying to say. What figures are we talking about here? Could you clarify on that?
Okay. Okay. So what we are talking is our run rate currently is, you know, between INR 220 crore-INR 250 crore per quarter. It is likely to remain at least for next two quarter. Then after two quarter, once we have Aadhaar, you know, executed on a full-scale basis, we will add another INR 40 crore-INR 50 crore in quarterly run rate. That's what I mean to say.
Okay, understood. Is this about the revenue or the EBITDA?
No, it is revenue. We are talking about revenue.
Okay, sure. And, one more thing. We have recently acquired NSDL Payments Bank, a stake in that. And from NSDL, we got to know that this is a pretty low-margin business. So what— could you explain the rationale behind this stake acquisition?
No, so our investment in NSDL Payments Bank is naturally about creating bank-grade financial technologies. And as I mentioned earlier, it gives us the chance to work with a you know a product and a compliance team from the bank and co-create products and technologies, which once deployed in NSDL Payments Bank as an anchor customer, becomes certified banking technologies and gives us the leeway and the ability to leverage and cross-sell across the entire BFSI ecosystem. So that was, in essence, the strategic partnership we set up with them. Along with that, naturally, payment banks, as you know, are largely distribution-driven organizations. NSDL Payments Bank today has a national footprint. We again create and support digital public infrastructure at a national level, and as a DPI organization, we also run a very strong pan-India network.
So we also see synergies between the two institutions in bringing their physical outreach and our digital technologies to create a very strong, digitally enabled last mile network. So these are some of the, you know, sort of, strategic wins we see coming together. Other than that, I would not comment on the banking products margin, because that would be a very different, you know, lens over there. We are primarily talking about being there as a service provider and having a network alignment with the payments bank.
Understood, sir. Thank you so much. Those were my questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one. The next question is from the line of Bajrang Bafna from Sunidhi Securities. Please go ahead.
So, sir, if you could just throw some light on the project pipeline. We have got a large mandate from Aadhaar recently, and which we are rolling out right now, maybe national or international. If you could throw some light on what sort of project pipeline that probably we are targeting right now and when those can fructify, maybe over the next 12 months time frame. Thank you.
Sure, Bajrang. No, so three, as I mentioned, when I said unexecuted order books, these are projects which are live and running. As Sandeep had explained earlier, quite a few of the turnkey projects are multi-year projects because you have a, you have a part where you are developing and deploying it from a technology stack perspective, and then you have a managed services part, which goes from anywhere between four to six years. So these are long-scale projects. Currently, when we look at it, even in the first instances of, you know, design, development and deployment, both the large projects on CERSAI KYC and on, Bima Sugam, we are at the early stage. Then we have a managed services contract under both these projects.
Aadhaar Seva Kendra, as we mentioned, it was a project in which we were to set up Aadhaar Seva Kendras at a national level. The first phase required setting up 34 centers across 19 states and union territories, and this will be followed by more, and this will be executed in three phases. We hope to complete the entire rollout by end of September, and which is where we are talking about the uptick in the revenues coming from this project. All three are contributing projects. Currently, they will be contributing from a deployment and delivery point of view, and then we'll have a managed services component coming in. These are the three large-scale turnkey projects we are working on domestically.
The other large project, which we just announced, was a win which we had last month only, was in Ethiopia, where we are building the agriculture DPI for the country at a national level. Again, it is all about creating the, you know, farmer ID registries for land records. So very similar to, you know, work that is happening in our country also over here, and that is again, a project which is on a turnkey basis, and we'll have a multiple year, you know, revenue model associated with it.
Okay. By project pipeline, I was trying to get that any other projects that we are either, you know, bidding or in the bidding stage or maybe in the pipeline, which probably we'll bid as and when they come. So some sort of that sort of pipeline, because our current total order book is around INR 1,600 crore. And since now we have started a new stream, you know, which are, which is more reliable and predictable. So on that line, any other, so, you know, projects that probably we are looking for and probably might come in the foreseeable future. So some guidance on that front will be really helpful, sir.
So Bajrang, the only thing is that definitely, you know, you're absolutely right. There is a complete vertical, which is now looking at whatever bids are there, where we are qualifying and our core competence and expertise matches that, so we are on a constant lookout. Areas for us are very wide because when we look at from a DPI lens, we are talking about anything doing—which is associated with identity, health, agriculture, education, skilling. So these are the sort of projects we are looking at and any other national infrastructure projects around consent and data. So there is a pipeline on which we are associated, but will be difficult to call out, because these are various, you know, discussions which are, you know, in the process, and I would not like to announce it at this stage.
Okay, got it. And, sir, you know, there is a lot of buzz right now, you know, across the globe about data centers, cloud services, you know, where there is a huge requirement which is happening, you know, not only, in U.S., but maybe other parts of the world. So what sort of preparation that probably you see in our country? Because probably we are also lagging, you know, in terms of data center build out in our country, also. So any thought on that, where probably, you know, this is a good line, but still, it's pretty nascent, and, and, and what sort of developments you see maybe in next one to two years sort of time frame, where we can also garner a larger pie of, this opportunity?
So, Bajrang, I think cloud today is becoming as a very, sort of, embedded strategy for any large-scale DPI institution. If you look at the Indian regulatory space, regulators are today very open to having a hybrid or, you know, cloud-hosted infrastructure in place. And we ourselves have seen that experience because we today work, for example, in the pension ecosystem, and the regulator is pretty open now to seeing that, you know, from a point of view of scalability and agility, if there could be cloud-hosted solutions. Similarly, we see a strong trust from MeitY, and you've seen it all, whether it is hosting, you know, different app layers on the cloud, or likewise coming with the artificial intelligence-based, you know, interventions coming over there.
So I think India is very much a part of the journey. India today also, as part of the budget, announced, you know, measures clearly which were focused at enabling hyperscalers to further, you know, build in the country. There is also a lot of sovereign trust coming in wherever, you know, we are looking at sensitive data within the country, and that is where our entire positioning of our Protean Cloud was right from the outset. And last but not least, for us, Protean Cloud also becomes a very embedded layer of infrastructure which we are, you know, sort of, in a way, complementarily positioning and proposing as part of the large bids where we go for turnkey projects.
So cloud is definitely there to stay, and I think, it's important that we build more layers of security and application into the cloud, and that is where the value add comes in.
Mm-hmm. Got it. Got it. And sir, just broadly, final question and thought is just, you know, we have been, you know, the growth have been, you know, consolidating between, let's say, 10-odd% for us, if we see last, you know, few quarters. Now, since we have a broader pipeline of almost INR 1,600 crore sort of order book, and already, CFO sir has indicated Q3 onwards, we'll see that kind of build-up. So any broader guidance on the overall, revenue growth, you know, maybe, from next two to three years perspective that, you know, because we, we are moving towards, let's say, from, 10% odd sort of compounding to maybe 20%-25% sort of compounding.
Also, the margins have already inching up, from about 8-9% to we are already 14% in this quarter. So, the trajectory, you know, where the broader margin trajectory also, maybe a band, not a specific number, will be really helpful. You know, if you'll talk about, let's say, 27%-28%, yeah. So, so just aspirational, number, if you could, just throw some, some guidance on that will be helpful.
Sure. Sure. You know, I guess while we are not giving guidance as such, but as we stated last, in last few calls as well, I'm again, you know, repeating for the sake of repeating. What we are saying is, our existing businesses, which is, tax, PAN and, foundational identity businesses, continues to grow at a 8%-10% rate. And our new businesses in next two to three years will contribute about 25%. Already, we are at 11%-12% in this year. So I think, from 11%- 20% , 12%- 25% in next two to three years, we should— we are aspiring, aspiring for that kind of, you know, growth in new businesses. So you can calculate on the back of envelope. This is the, you know, assumption.
Okay. And on the margins front, any broader, because we are already hitting, you know, mid-teen mark right now. So-
Yeah.
Can we be towards, let's say, 18%-20% sort of margin, two to three years down the line?
You are talking about-
EBITA.
Profit margin, EBIT margin, EBITDA margin?
EBITDA, EBITDA margins.
So EBITDA, we are already at 19%, if you see. So I think, there will be an expansion-
Including other income.
We-
Yeah.
Without other income, okay. So there will be an expansion of, you know, 300-400 basis points, which is what we said last time also, in, you know, next couple of years, once we start growing our revenues at this pace.
Got it. 300-400 basis points over a longer term timeframe.
Over the longer term, yeah.
Thank you. Thank you very much, sir, and all the very best.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. A reminder to all the participants, if you wish to ask a question, please press star and one. The next question is from the line of Kunal Bhatia from Dalal and Broacha Stock Broking Limited. Please go ahead.
Yeah, sir. Thank you for the opportunity. Sir, I had one question in terms of if in case of the CRA services, if we remove the impact of the pricing, what is the kind of growth we would have achieved on a normalized business basis?
About 12%-14% growth, I would say, if we remove the impact of the pricing.
Okay. And so, so this normalization will start happening from the next quarter, or it will take couple of quarters to get to that normal 12%-13% kind of growth?
Which you are talking about, the CRA only?
Yes, sir. Yes.
I think it will take one more quarter, I guess, and the pricing will get stabilized.
Okay. So there could be a one more quarter of a flattish kind of a growth for the CRA services?
I don't know, I don't know whether it will be flattish or it will be, you know, growth, but as I'm saying, you know, it should start improving from here on.
Kunal, let me add a perspective to it, sir.
Sure.
As you're all aware that we see it in public domain. The regulator is putting out some very, you know, aggressive reforms out there, with the whole idea of pension penetration. So whether it is introducing multiple scheme framework, which effectively is, you know, personalizing or customizing products for various category of investors. Likewise, lot of withdrawal, you know, requirements have been again changed and retweaked to make it easier for consumers. So there is a strong thrust on pension penetration. While what Sandeep said is right, but what we see as the underlying drivers, that this market may expand significantly. So the whole idea is, if even the pricing is AUM-linked going forward, so the AUM linkage and the movement into higher AUM incentivization will play out once the incremental adoption starts.
That is where we are betting that, you know, over the next few months, quarters, the reforms should see the impact, and we should see a higher growth trajectory coming out over there.
Okay. Okay.
In the long run, I think we are very excited about this business.
Okay. Okay. And, sir, also in regards to your previous comment, in terms of the, cloud services, because of the, tax holiday, which was announced by, the FM in the current budget, is there any kind of an opportunity available for, Protean in general for this?
So I would say we are internally discussing and strategizing where we should, you know, deploy our cloud, whether it will be, you know, for our large project, or whether we can, you know, independently also sell cloud. So right now we are in a strategy phase for this business, but having said that, I think in next one or two quarter, we should be clear about these businesses.
But that will be in sort of a JV or something with the hyperscaler or we would be able to do it on our own?
It would be all kinds. I would not say only JV with hyperscaler, but, you know, it would be a sovereign cloud-
We are keeping our options open-
Yeah.
To that extent, right? Because again, there is a strong thrust on sovereignty, so we also want—
Right
... to keep our own strategy very clear as a sovereign cloud, because that does give us a significant leverage, especially in the areas we work in from a DPI perspective. But at the same time, partnerships in areas where it works out will be something we will pursue. So keeping open options at this stage.
Okay, okay. So finally, one bookkeeping question, sir. Where do we see the run rate for depreciation? And sorry, what was the reason for such a high jump on a YoY basis?
So the run rate for depreciation will increase. I think right now we are at about 4.5% on revenue. So I think it will remain between 4.5%-5.5%. And the reason for high jump is, basically we, there were certain assets which we acquired in last year. The impact of that is coming in this year. Plus, we have, you know, our offices, we have shifted to our offices. Under new, you know, lease accounting method, we have to redo depreciate those.
Okay, so it is the India's impact?
Yeah, India's to some extent.
Okay, okay, okay. Finally. Yeah. Thank you, sir. Thank you so much.
Thank you. A reminder to all the participants, if you wish to ask a question, please press star and one. The next question is from the line of Guru Prasad from Sharekhan. Please go ahead.
So thank you for giving me the opportunity. First of all, I would like to congratulate on the excellent set of the results in a challenging environment. And, I'm a bit concerned because, under Mr. Sethi, the company has really done wonderfully well in spite of few hiccups. So I would like to know, like, what are the continuity plans of the business. So if it can help a lot, giving some kind of a comfort to investors.
Sure, Guru. So Guru, this was a personal decision. I had—we were working very closely with the board over a period of time to ensure that there is a smooth transition. For personal and professional reasons, I'm moving ahead, and the intention was to create a very robust succession planning in place, and that we have done. And we have moved forward with that. We've got, as earlier mentioned, a complete strong leadership in place across all the verticals as we had restructured the organization sometime last year. And there is absolute continuity, and we don't see any disruption. And the board and management has worked very closely in steering it and making sure it's absolutely seamless.
Thank you, sir. It gives a real comfort from hearing from your mouth. My next question is on the margin improvement initiatives. What are the key initiatives with the company's planning so that the margin can improve over a long period of time?
I think, over here, there are, you know, by default, two aspects to look at. One is securing good, high-quality margin businesses. So a lot of our thrust till now, as we've always said, the core businesses are at a DPI level, whether it is in pension, taxation, identity. So one area in which the company is clearly building further is to get into more products and SaaS businesses, which naturally are, you know, getting more monetization value at the application and innovation layer level. So directionally, that is one way of moving into higher margin accretive products for the company. The second area we clearly see is that while we still keep fueling the DPI growth in the country, we try to build the peripheral ecosystems around each of the large-scale projects that we are securing.
The other side, clearly, is cost control. So the company is definitely also working very closely to ensure there is maximum efficiencies. There is strong adoption of AI from a productivity perspective, from the way we do our businesses. And therefore, it is a dual approach to make sure that we go for higher margin businesses, and we keep our costs in control at the same time. So that is the plan to really see how we can create a superior performance out of whatever we are doing going forward.
Thank you, sir. With your permission, my last question is on the international order pipeline. How is it looking, and any clues on when we can expect any big success from this?
So the international order pipeline, Guru, again, there are multiple countries we are actively engaged with. As I mentioned, we now have a footprint across three countries. In one country, we've actually got now two mandates, and Ethiopia was a recent win. So there are multiple discussions. I can, you know, we can share with you offline also in some of the areas where we are at the last stages of evaluation. But at this stage, not in a position to announce, because until we get the mandate, we can't talk about that. But there is a broad-based engagement across the regions which we took as our preferred regions in Africa, in Middle East and Southeast Asia.
Thank you. Thank you a lot. Thank you, sir, and all the best wishes to you, sir.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Viraj Methani from Jupiter Financial. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity. Am I audible, sir?
Yes, Viraj, you are.
Yeah, sir, I would like to know more. Can you give me more color on the Ethiopian order, like, size of the order and how, what kind of revenue would be booked and how it will be booked?
So the Ethiopian order, Viraj, is totaling up to INR 25 crore. It is again in the form of a RFP, as we mentioned, from the government, because we are doing a national-level implementation of the agricultural DPI for Ethiopia, where we'll be building the entire suite of registries and ID-related aspects for the agriculture sector. And this will be spread over a few years, two to three years, and the revenues will flow as they do with a natural RFP progression, right? There will be a period of development and deployment, followed by a maintenance phase after that.
The maintenance does not include maintenance, correct? That will be separate after.
Yeah, yeah, but the total project value is within INR 25 crore, right? So everything falls within that.
Okay.
Because these are bids we make, right? When RFPs, we bid for a project, so the entire accumulated cost of design, development, and maintenance, all is taken into the bid. So the total size of the project is INR 25 crore.
Okay. Okay, thank you, and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. We will take our next, we will take our last question from the line of Rohan from Equirus Securities. Please go ahead.
Thanks for the opportunity, sir, again. Sir, we had done a few tie-ups with banks on ONDC. While I understand that ONDC is not picking up right now, I just want to understand, like, what's happening to those tie-ups. As we've seen in case of account aggregators, while the initial pickup was very slow, but in the recent couple of quarters, there's been a decent enough pickup on account aggregator as a framework and utilization. So what's happening on those tie-ups with banks and other entities on ONDC, and what is our thought process for next two, three years on ONDC?
I think, Rohan, ONDC, definitely, again, we maintain and we have a belief that it's, it's a revolutionary intervention in the market from a digital commerce point of view, and it has definitely, you know, sort of also diversified into enabling open finance, mobility, and transport. There's also a services part to it. So we keep closely engaged. I think, clearly the question is about adoption. We continue to remain engaged with the ecosystem from the early learnings we have of the, of the technology and the stack that we built for ONDC. And, yes, currently, the numbers are not something which, which are, you know, sort of, in a way, substantial enough to do individual reporting on them.
As the ecosystem grows and as we see some level of, you know, adoption and therefore outcomes coming from it, we'll be happy to share. But currently, the visibility on ONDC is the same as is, I think, also shared very clearly by the ONDC team in terms of the, you know, the monthly numbers that they share on their website. The trajectory is not flat, they are growing, but that's where it is currently for us also.
Right. But in terms of the tie-ups with banks, are we going ahead with implementation for them? Whatever tie-ups we've done.
Each one of them, some are in POC stage, because the banks are also seeing if there's adoption, then they'll put it on a full-scale basis. So these are, I think it's a chicken and egg, because if you see traction happening, the bank would push for it. Otherwise, the banks also do it in a very limited POC manner to just test the technology rather than to see actual, you know, volume growth over there.
Sure. Thanks, sir. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Suresh Sethi for closing comments. Over to you, sir.
So thank you very much for a patient hearing, and thanks for all the questions, which also help us to understand, you know, the expectations and some of the, you know, numbers that the community would like to have from us. So happy to also engage with you one-on-one and provide more information. But thank you very much, and for the positive comments in terms of the results in this quarter, and we look forward to continuing with the same momentum in the year going forward. Thank you so much.
Thank you very much. On behalf of Protean eGov Technologies Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you all for joining us today, and you may now disconnect your lines.