Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Pine Labs Limited Q4 and full-year FY 2026 earnings call. Thank you for joining us today. Please note that all participants will be in listen-only mode, and this call is being recorded for reference. Representing the Pine Labs' management team today are Mr. Amrish Rau, Chief Executive Officer, and Mr. Sameer Kamath, Group Chief Financial Officer. Here's how the call will flow. Mr. Rau will begin with his opening remarks, followed by a couple of product demonstrations and an overview of the business highlights. Mr. Kamath will then walk you through the company's financial performance, after which we'll open the floor for questions during the Q&A session. Before we get started, a quick reminder, some of the statements shared during this discussion may be forward-looking in nature, and actual results could differ materially due to a range of external factors.
This Zoom session is intended exclusively for investors and analysts. If you're joining us from a media organization, we kindly request that you disconnect at this time and reach out to our investor relations team directly with any queries. With that, I now hand the call over to Mr. Rau. Over to you, sir.
Thank you very much. Good morning. Thanks for taking the call early in the day. We released our numbers yesterday. We would want to give some more color on how we are looking at the business and what we are doing in the business. We w ant to keep this largely as a Q&A session, but what I felt was it's just appropriate I give a little bit more in terms of what's happening in the market, what's happening in the field, give you more color on that one, and then get into specifics about the business and take some questions on that. The numbers are pretty much there in our yesterday's release, so we won't be repeating through on the numbers. As we've always said, our vision has been clear.
We want to build the greatest fintech coming out of India, being able to serve not just Southeast Asia, but also the larger global markets out there. Next. As we have mentioned, we operate in two large business lines. One is the Digital Infrastructure and the Transactions business, and the second is what we do on the Issuing and Acquiring side. Within the Digital Infrastructure and Transactions, there are three parts to our business. One is the offline business of ours, the offline and the online business. That basically is the Infrastructure business, allows us to operate with large merchants. On top of that, we have our flow-related, transaction-related services, which is largely monetized by us by the transaction or by the value of the flow which operates on that infrastructure.
Third is what we do as fintech infrastructure, both for banks and financial institutions as well as merchants. These are the three lines within the Digital Infrastructure and the Transactions business. The last business, which is now almost about 30% of our revenues, is what we do on the Issuing and Acquiring side. We always believe that it's not just relevant for us to operate on being able to receive money, but also where money is held and where money is being sent out from, that's going to be extremely important, and that gets covered in what we do on the Issuing and Acquiring side of the business. As I mentioned, it's about 30% of our revenues. This is the way in which we run our business, and the way in which we run our financials out there.
At the lowermost point is what we do in terms of the infrastructure and the distribution of infrastructure. As we have said, we have now reached almost about 2 million touchpoints that we operate in. We are making tremendous progress on the Online side of the business. On the Online side of the business, we are now present with the top three e-commerce company, the top three Q-commerce company with our Payment Gateway platform. On top of that, what we do is we really deliver services both for retailer and for banks and financial institutions. We announced a few days back what we are doing, for example, with the three petroleum company, and it's quite a complex solution that we have developed for the petroleum sector. We actually cover for loyalty-related services for the petroleum sector. We also deliver solutions for banks and financial institutions.
Again, we do a lot of work with HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank, but we've been able to take this global, where we are doing services for Emirates NBD. In Philippines, we work very closely with GCash. We deliver very sector-specific solutions on top of the infrastructure play that we do. The third layer out there is we deliver more services so that we bring customers into the banking institutions or to the retailers. That's where our affordability solutions delivers the loyalty-related products, the rewards, cash backs, all of these services comes on the third layer. Now what we have started to do is we've actually started to monetize on the basis of the data that we have collected out there, the marketing services that we can deliver on top of the infrastructure and the services that we provided.
We are continuing to invest heavily into this space. We just recently launched a product called SignalIQ. SignalIQ allows us to look at consumer data. We work very closely with Account Aggregator framework. On the basis of the data that we get through the Account Aggregator framework, on behalf of our partners, we are now delivering analytics-based solutions for better underwriting in the market. We actually have about eight clients with us, either in the pilot stage or fully contracted with us on this product called SignalIQ. I will talk later about the recent acquisition that we did around Shopflo, which is in the Online Payment space.
If you see, there's a very clear strategy: lay out the infrastructure first, deliver solutions which are domain-specific, get flow-based revenues going out there, and as we collect more data, as we collect more information about our merchants and about their customers, we can deliver value to them. That's actually starting to come through in our financials. That's one of the reasons why we've been able to move from an infrastructure-specific revenue model to transaction or flow-based revenue model and information-based revenue model. As I told you, that is what being reflected in the numbers. We came in with about 19% growth on the revenue side. On an Adjusted EBITDA side, from somewhere around INR 350 crores of Adjusted EBITDA, we have now delivered about INR 559, 560 crores on Adjusted EBITDA. We made significant progress in terms of EBITDA margin.
We made almost about 500 basis points improvement on the EBITDA margin side. Going into FY 2027, we haven't really given us very specific guidance in terms of EBITDA, but what we have done is we have given out a hard guidance when it comes to revenues. We think we'll be able to grow at about 21%-23.5% on a year-on-year basis as far as revenue is concerned. We've already shown how we see the flow-through between revenue contribution margin and Adjusted EBITDA in our business. So we definitely feel confident that we'll be able to significantly improve our Adjusted EBITDA going into FY 2027. Obviously what that does is it converts into very strong PAT, PBT, PAT, and we delivered about INR 113 crores as far as PAT is concerned. Another question which had been coming up all through the year had been around the operating cash flow.
We had been at pains to explain to The Street that this is a company which can deliver free cash flows, can deliver very, very strong operating cash flows in the business. I'm glad to say that we delivered almost about INR 676 crores or INR 656 crores of operating cash flow in Q4 only. Look, INR 676 crores of cash flow in Q4 only. I'm going to be the first one to tell you that this INR 676 crores should not be looked at on a standalone basis. You've got to look at it what happened on a full year basis, that we came in at about INR 395 crores of operating cash flow. We feel confident that we will improve on the cash flow in FY 2027 in a very significant manner.
This is a company which is giving enough weightage on everything, including operating cash flow, and I am quite pleased with where we have come up as far as our financial is concerned. These are again numbers which are specific to Q4, but I wanted to throw some light on what are the underlying metrics which are there, which are leading for us to deliver to those financials. As I mentioned to you, on a full year basis, we came in almost close to about $200 billion of payment volume. That is just a significant growth as far as GTV is concerned. What that is telling me is across markets, we are winning. We are winning market share in the offline business. We are winning market share in the online business. We are winning significant portion of the flow-based, transaction-based revenues in the street.
As I told you, we are at about 2 million touchpoints today in the field. I also want to give a little bit more color. Look, I used to always tell my mother saying that, hey, when you go to a restaurant, you're not necessarily going to get to see Pine Labs because this is not the core sector that we want to go after. Honestly, if you actually go out into Bombay, Delhi, and some of the other metros, you're starting to see Pine Labs everywhere. You're getting to see Pine Labs at restaurants. You're getting to see Pine Labs at the petrol pumps. You're getting to see Pine Labs at merchants who have two or three stores. There's some very significant change which is happening in the field.
One, banks and financial institutions are clearly realizing that payments is a very, very unique proposition, and they are calling Pine Labs much more. We are also getting to see our direct-to-merchant strategy pay off. We are getting to see an environment where competition is starting to back off out of this market because their requirements and their business models are quite different from where we are. We are getting to see significant progress as far as field is concerned. In the last six months time, in segments of the business, we've actually been able to deliver almost 7% improvement in the unit economics in those markets is concerned. That's one. In the Online space, we are making very good progress. We've actually now grown that business almost by 60% on a year-on-year basis.
All the three Q-commerce companies, all the three e-commerce companies are today using Pine Labs as a platform. I see this going to be a very significant growth area for us as we go forward. Just to throw a little bit more light in terms of the flow-based businesses, we continue to gain market share as far as affordability is concerned. We've increased the number of brands that we operate with. We are signing up more and more NBFCs so that we can deliver credit at the point of purchase. We believe that NBFC is going to be a very significant play as you go forward. I just want to throw a little bit more light on this business.
What merchants are telling us is that, "I don't want my platform partner, which is Pine Labs, being vetted to one NBFC." We have not launched our NBFC, but what we have continued to deliver is we have continued to deliver more choices to the merchants as well as their consumers. If a consumer is coming in with one NBFC as their "favored partner" or somebody who has already underwritten them, they will be able to deliver credit at the point of purchase. The more the NBFCs, the more line of credits that we can avail and deliver at the point of purchase, more the brands where the subvention is possible.
It just becomes a very strong network play, and that's something which continues to improve. As far as the Issuing business is concerned, our Issuing business has shown tremendous growth, not just in India but also in global markets. Many new specific use cases are coming up, and these use cases are from wallets or rewards being an infrastructure play. We are actually seeing some very important steps being taken by Reserve Bank of India in the last few days, where RBI recognized the fact that when you actually look at the various business models, PPI is a very important business model both for the retailer and the consumer, and they are actually streamlining the processes, streamlining the governance related to the prepaid business, and we absolutely appreciate all of that. We are also seeing a very big opportunity come up when it comes to employee benefits.
We will be launching an employee benefits program over the next few weeks and quarters. We think this is going to be an opportunity where we'll be able to address a large TAM of both consumers and corporates. On the issuing side of the business, I feel very comfortable that growth is sort of being taken care of. Internationally, even just now as we speak, I'm in Europe, internationally, we are getting to see more conversations happening as far as our products are concerned. There are two things which are happening significantly. One, the big boys of payments coming out of the U.S., may that be a Stripe or an Adyen. They're seeing a phenomenal opportunity in their home markets of the U.S. They're spending a lot more time in those markets. That doesn't mean the emerging markets don't require fintech solutions.
What we've delivered here in India and the tech stack that we have created for the Indian market is extremely relevant in, let's say, a Philippines or a Vietnam or for that matter, UAE. Just to give you one simple number out there, in the case of Philippines alone, which is our newest market, we have five clients today in Philippines. The largest fintech app in Philippines is somebody called GCash, and GCash is using us as their payments infrastructure layer. You're getting to see very strong progress. We are getting dollar-based revenues when it comes to our international side of the business. You will see in our releases that we made very good progress in the year of FY 2026 in the international markets. We see that continuing going into FY 2027 too. I wanted to shed a little bit more light as far as AI is concerned.
In our business, almost 89% of all new code which has been written within Pine Labs over the last two quarters has been completely AI-generated. Let that sink in. 89% of all new code has been written using AI. It does two things for us. One, it provides tremendous efficiency as we build for new products within the company. Also, when you look at legacy platforms that we had built, those legacy platforms are getting updated. Those legacy platforms are getting improved as we speak. We've been working very closely with Anthropic of the world. As Mythos is being released, we are one of the first guys to actually reach out to Anthropic to see what we can do, partner with them so that we can actually get the best use of products like Mythos.
Also, we've gone ahead and signed up a partnership with OpenAI, where we will be one of the first few design partners with OpenAI as we build out AI products in the local markets. The second piece where AI is playing a significant role is all our consumer-facing touchpoints has AI at the background, and we are incorporating that within our business model. Third, we are actually using AI to deliver significant solutions in the market. I wanted to show you some products and demos today. Just too early in the morning to try and go through two product demonstrations as all of us are ready to leave for office there. I decided to keep that away. In Mumbai, over the next three days, there is a program which is being delivered by the Mumbai Tech Association.
We're actually going to talk about what we are doing when it comes to AI and agentic commerce. We've developed entire workflows, may that be around using UPI and agentic payments and deliver transactions in the field. We're completely ready in using AI and using agent-led framework to deliver payment transactions. We're doing three things. One is improving efficiency, improving code, improving new products using AI. I'm now going to stop and basically take questions related to our financials and also shed some more light in terms of how we are looking at the business and where we are seeing the opportunity in FY 2027.
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, we open the floor for question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, please click the raise hand button on the bottom toolbar of your Zoom window. The operator will acknowledge you and announce your turn in the queue. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll pause for a brief moment while the question queue assembles. We'll take the first question from Jayant Kharote. Please go ahead.
Yeah, Jayant, go ahead.
Hi. Good morning, Amrish and Sameer. Thanks for the opportunity. The first question is on the growth itself. Given that we're already two months into the quarter, how is 1Q looking, and does that make you confident on the 21%-23%? Will this be something that we'll see through every quarter for the four quarters, or that West Asia pain could come to 1Q as well?
Jayant, that's a good question. We feel very confident about the hard guidance that we have given of 21%-23.5%. We are already getting to see how the numbers are rolling in for Q1. Look, the way I'm going to say this is when we actually went to IPO, the entire market asked us a question that says, this five, six crores of EBITDA positive, sorry, PBT positive, which we had started to show in Q1 and Q2 of FY 2026. People are asking us everything from, "Is this a fluke or is this a one-time kind of a number?" We had great focus to try and explain to the market saying, "This is a business which can run PBT positive, PAT positive for a long period of time," and that's what we wanted to get right.
As soon as we started to get right, there were questions around when Q3, when our cash flows turned negative, it says, "Is this truly a cash-generating machine out there?" We wanted to really get that explanation out to the street. We focused out there. I would have loved the growth to be 20% north when it comes to Q4 also. When you look at a full year basis, we came in at about 19%. Even H2, we came in with almost 20%, 21% as far as growth is concerned. I feel very confident in this hard guidance that we have given of about 21%-23.5%. We have incorporated the softness that we have seen when it comes to the Middle East markets and also some of the softness that we saw on the airline part of the business.
We feel very confident about the 21%-23.5% revenue guidance that we've given.
If you could also elaborate what was softer in Q4 and how does it change in 1Q?
Yeah, that's a good question again. See, look, what I've always said is in the case of payments business, there are many external events which obviously drive us. The economy and the consumption-related activities. Second is what is happening in terms of geopolitics, which affects cross-border trade or for that matter, how banks and financial institutions want to invest when it comes to payment-related solutions. Third, something which is equally important, and we saw this during COVID period, there was clearly a chip shortage which came through in the COVID period. Even now, when AI related, actually not West Asia related, but more AI related, there was a chip shortage which we had seen.
There was a time in Q4 where we had a backlog running of almost 2 lakh POS machines, which we had to deploy in the market and which got delayed so that between Q4 and Q1. I have to say that it's all behind us right now. Everything on the supply chain is in place. We have enough to deliver in the market. There was clearly an impact that we saw when it came to decision-making from some of these Middle Eastern banks and financial institutions. It's about INR 15 crores-INR 20 crores out there, it's nothing major. The way I want you all to look at the business is, I believe that growth in the Payments business is something which can very easily be controlled out there. What is the kind of growth that you're bringing in?
What is the kind of EBITDA margins that you can sustain at that level? I think you got to put everything together. As you know, we improved the EBITDA margin by almost 500 basis points in the year of FY 2026 also.
Amrish, sorry to harp on this. I'm not getting a clear answer maybe because within the Digital Infra business, is it affordability, VAS or the in-store subscription piece? Which of these three have actually slowed in Q4 and will-
Largely related to the infrastructure piece. The INR 20 crore, INR 25 crore, which we would have liked to see coming in higher in Q4, which is largely related to the infrastructure piece. There is a small component when it came to the affordability and the flow-based transaction services, but largely around the infrastructure and deployment of some of these solutions.
It should start coming through from 1Q itself?
It has already started. Okay, sorry, you asked another portion of the question. When we've come up with the guidance of 21%-23.5% in the year of FY 2027, we do think that Q1, which is the weakest quarter for us on a full year basis, we will still get to see the lower end of the guidance play through in Q1 itself. As we go forward in the rest of three quarters of the year, we will start to see improved growth rates in Q2, Q3, Q4. That's the way we would see the numbers stack up for us.
Oh, great. That's very reassuring. You do plan to hit 21% within the next quarter itself?
Absolutely. Now, is it going to be 20% or is it going to be 21%? Let's see how the quarter ends. Yes, I definitely do see this. Absolutely. I do see this on the lower end of the guidance to start off in Q1 itself.
Sorry, if I could just one last question to Sameer. The depreciation amortization line has an INR 6 crore item in-chip QoQ. What would you attribute that one to?
At the year-end, we do a full true-up of any obsolescence or anything which is required based on what we can collect from the merchants, et cetera. There is a one-time annual activity. The amount is about INR 4 crores-INR 5 crores. The rest is all linked to certain business growth that we have seen a little bit coming through with the oil marketing companies, et cetera. Otherwise, this is just a one-time true-up, which is done. On a run rate basis, it'll be lower.
This is not recurring, right?
No. This INR 5 crore is a year-end cleanup that we do, where we clean up any old obsolete items, et cetera. Though we do some provisioning, but at the year-end, we true it up fully for the year.
Okay, thank you. Again, I think congrats on the good profitability. We expect, hopefully, we hope for better growth from Q1 onwards.
Thank you .
Thank you.
Look, again, just to reiterate out there. As far as we are concerned, we want to show this as an all-around business, which has enough levers to drive growth and also to drive not just the PAT, but also in terms of our cash flow based performance.
Thank you. That question was from Jayant of Axis Capital. We now move to our next question. That's from Pranuj Shah of 3P Investments. Please go ahead.
Hi, hope I'm audible. Thank you for the question. Yeah, great to see the traction on the operating cash flow and what you had mentioned in 3Q delivered on that. Just on the CapEx part, this INR 238 crores, could you break it down between DCPs and what are the other components and how do you expect that to trend? That's the first question. The second is, again, strong revenue guidance at 21%-23%. I'm assuming, I think international and distribution will be a big part of this. On your contribution margin, the 75%, do you expect this to taper off going ahead? You're given a flow from contribution to PBT. I just want to see on contribution margin how you expect that to trend. Thank you.
I'll take the second question and request Sameer to address the first part.
Let me take the first part, Pranuj. I think what you're seeing is CapEx in operating cash flow. As Amrish mentioned, when the DCPs were procured in the earlier avatar, we had in FY 2025 certain outstanding payments which came through this year. The operating cash flow basis, you see INR 280 crores, but adjusted for certain opening payouts which is there, the run rate of CapEx is about INR 180 crores-INR 190 crores, which remains. When you see INR 283 crores, about INR 160 crores-INR 170 crores pertains to DCPs, which is more or less on the run rate that we've been done. Rest is related to certain older payments that we made. That will remain at that level. That's the first question on the CapEx side. Amrish, you can take on the-
Sorry, just a clarification. This DCC one is also slightly higher because of the OMC-
See what happens is when you procure this quarter in Q4, while we are expecting deliveries to happen given the chip shortage, all suppliers are asking for advances. CWIP also gets covered in that.
Okay, this should slightly come off in FY 2027 versus-
As the chip shortages, as Amrish said, we looked at alternate supplies. We got new supply chain partners. That's a quarter end phenomenon because of the war. Because everyone was working on 100% advance. While the delivery was not happening, we couldn't book revenues. We had to incur advances and pay that, and it's sitting in CWIP.
Okay, understood. Got it.
You go ahead, Amrish.
Yeah. Sorry, I lost my thought because I had a comment to make on the first part. On the first part, I just wanted to add something. We had a very similar situation play out during the COVID period also, where we've gone ahead and upped the inventory that we had built in our business. On the second part of the question, what I wanted to share with you is, look, we are operating at world-class levels as far as contribution margin is concerned. I was just looking at Google's number. Google is almost about 56%-58% of contribution margin. We are in the 75% range. We operate at a net revenue basis. Because we operate on a net revenue basis, and what I mean by net revenues, we don't have grossing up where we take 2% as our revenues.
We just take the net to come to our revenues. We operate in that fashion, in most part of our businesses, our contribution margin continues to be at a higher level. That's just a business principle that we've held for a long period of time. We don't intend to change from that operating model. That's point number one. Point number two, however, what is happening is we are getting into newer businesses. For example, as we go into an employee benefits kind of a business in this year of FY 2026, how the financial recording in that is concerned, that's obviously going to come in with a slightly different range when it comes to contribution margins in our business. Because of that, there could be 2%-3% up and down which can happen when it comes to contribution margin.
The larger point what I want to make out here is the business that stands today, I really don't see the contribution margin changing from where it is operating at as far as we are concerned. As newer business line comes in, because of the revenue mix which is coming through, there could be a change of 2% or 3%. Yes, what we are saying out there is there could be a variance of 2% or 3% as far as contribution margin is concerned because of the business mix. But in terms of our operating model, we actually don't have a chance to change the contribution margin in a different manner purely because we are operating at a net revenue level.
Understood, Amrish. Thanks. That was very clear. Just a clarification, this INR 21.23 crores is not net revenue, this is the headline revenue.
Yeah. That's correct.
30% delta is what you can see.
At a contribution margin level, we came in at about 73%-74% in Q4. On a full year basis, I think we would have come in at about 74%-75% on a full year basis.
Understood. The 2%-3% delta is there. It can go either way from here.
That's correct.
As we have explained in the deck also, Pranuj, I think in our issuance business, our value proposition is not just the back-end tech infrastructure. We actually help and partner with brands in acquiring and retaining customers. Distribution of those cards, either directly through our enhanced portal Woohoo, which we have put out in the deck as well, or through third-party marketplaces where they ever pass through a distribution cost, becomes a critical lever. The good part is distribution incrementally is additive to the EBITDA, while it may be smaller on a contribution level. Also it fuels the processing business because brands see value in the holistic program offering that we have. That's why, as we explained in the last quarter as well, we remain in the guidance range that Amrish has said.
This is where the new edge for us in terms of what value we deliver to the clients comes up.
Perfect. Understood. Thanks a lot, Amrish and Sameer.
Thank you. Next question is from Prakhar Sharma of Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, everyone. Thanks for doing this call and the clarity. I have a quick few questions. First part is, can you discuss the trends in terms of the affordability business that you're seeing for the quarter and maybe early part of this quarter? What do you expect for the full year? Because we are seeing a lot of credit card players pull back on offers. I don't know what is the change they are doing in terms of strategy on subvention. If you could discuss that part of the business first.
Yeah, Prakhar, that's a good question. Look, I'll have to say right now, when it comes to offers and programs being run by banks and also for brands are concerned, there is always a change which all of them have been doing. The change has been going on for many years, where what we are getting to see is, as soon as a certain category is becoming very relevant and understood by the consumer, some of those offers are being taken away. One of the largest banks in India in the last two to three years period, started to pull back on the offers that they had running with one of the largest mobile phone brands around the world.
Obviously, what that meant is that the bank and financial institution believed that consumers are ready to pay for that product and consumer are ready to go in with a lower offer-based program, but they will still be able to see traction. That move has been going on for the last two to three years. What we have equally seen from banks and financial institutions is they are coming up with newer programs where they want to promote affordability solution. One sector which I can give you a very immediate guidance is around what's happening in terms of EVs. One of the leading EV players in the market, we are now getting to see traction coming up when it comes to affordability in the EV segment.
We are seeing similar such opportunities open up, not just in terms of EVs, but also in terms of regular non-consumer durable brand-based affordability solutions, which are starting to take off. Yes, we are getting to see a change when it comes to banks and financial institutions' behavior when it comes to subvention, but it is popping up in other parts of the market where they are promoting it. That's one part. Second part, which is very important and which I have to clarify out there is, obviously what we are getting to see is if the consumer durables take-off in the market is lower, affordability solutions take-off also gets slightly lower. There what we are doing is we are working hard so that we can go and compete against new line of credit which is being delivered.
There are NBFCs and there's a world-class NBFC which delivers new line of credit at the point of purchase, and they've been doing it over the last 10 years. Our objective then starts to become how do we take our banks' credit card-based line of credit and start to compete with them much more proactively. We've been continuing to do that. By how can you improve the number of stores, how can you improve the number of credit lines which are being delivered at the store so that we can continue to maintain our growth. My CFO and I, we talk a lot about it, where what we don't want to do is we really don't want to go back and say that, look, there is a softness in the affordability business just because consumption is down or just because mobile phones are less being procured out there.
Our job is to come up with newer sector, come up with newer touch points so that we can still maintain the year-on-year growth when it comes to affordability. I just want to again clarify. In the flow-based services, there are multiple revenue lines that we've been now able to generate. May that be around DCC, may that be around what we are doing with consumer fintech partnerships that we have in the market, and we are continuing to increase the consumer fintech partnerships. We today have partnerships with at least three, if not four, consumer fintechs, so that they can take their offers to their consumers at the point of purchase. Maybe these offers are not just affordability offers, but these are offers, for example, buy a coffee at 50% of the price, convert it into an offer-based transaction.
Got it. Is it possible to clarify the split between affordability and VAS, either in terms of revenues or the GDP part?
We haven't been keen to show that in detail right now, Prakhar. If you would have seen, we started to give out a little bit more information. One of the things that we've proactively gone out has said, where in our O nline business, we've grown by 60% on a year-on-year basis. That's a very proactive step that we've taken because we feel that now that we've shown the market that we've been growing in online by 60%, we should be able to track to that number and keep improving on that number going forward. We will continue to show more detailed breakup also as we go forward.
Got it. Just a few follow-up questions. One is, over the last one year, there has been an adjustment on the contribution margin, even as you've delivered well on your Adjusted EBITDA guidance. As the year goes through, how do you think we should factor the contribution level for FY 2027, 2028?
Prakhar, as I said in the last question, I think you should assume a variance of 2%-3%. If you saw, for example, in Q3, the contribution margin was higher than where it was at Q4. In fact, even in terms of Q2. Q2 was slightly lower, Q3 was higher, and the Q4 came in slightly lower. I think it will move around in a 2%-3% kind of a range is what I would want to mention out here.
From a full year perspective, for FY 2026, that is the benchmark with-
I'm not actually giving a guidance on that one because-
Okay
I don't have a handle yet in terms of the breakup and how the breakup will flow as far as revenue is concerned or volumes are concerned.
Got it.
We can continue even more specific color on this between all our calls.
Prakhar, the only thing you need to keep away is actually we are seeing no margin pressure. In fact, we are actually seeing some price ups happening in some of our segments. Whatever change we are seeing is purely an outcome of the business mix versus anything else, and not because In fact, we are seeing ability to price better in many of our segments because of the reasons Amrish mentioned at the opening level, and we can maybe share more color as we go through our remaining quarters to give comfort on that as well.
Got it.
Yeah. I wanted to make one point, which I should have done in my earlier call also. When you go to lower than the enterprise merchants, and these are merchants with about five stores, six stores. We actually saw a Infrastructure business where we deployed POS machines and did integrations out there. We actually saw on a year-on-year basis almost 30% growth. That's an area where our unit economics we've actually been able to improve about 7%. Not just market expansion, but also at a better operating model.
Just quickly, you did mention on the call, that you're seeing some sort of a competition pullback happening in the POS business or any of the other businesses. One, if you can give some more details on what you're seeing on the ground. Secondly, your growth guidance, I assume it will include the Shopflo and any of the inorganic things. Just to confirm, besides the Shopflo acquisition, does the guidance include any inorganic boosters?
No, it does not. It does not include any inorganic boosters to our numbers right now. As I said, when we made the acquisition around Shopflo on a revenue basis compared to the larger portion of the business is still extremely small. It's a product-led acquisition that we have done. Even in the case of Shopflo, it's not going to have a material impact when it comes to the growth numbers are concerned. Will it help us to deliver to, let's say, a 50%- 60% growth on the Online side of the business? Absolutely. Without that, would we have come in at 56%, 50%- 60%? I think it would have still come in that kind of a range. It just helps me to cement it, but it's not going to be material. We've not included any inorganic numbers there.
In terms of field and what is happening in the pullback, look, I'll give you very specific examples. When it comes to these petroleum companies, we'll be deploying our terminals at almost about 50,000, and we already started 50,000 terminals. These locations are far-flung locations out there. These are on highways. These are in small villages of the country. For somebody to go into that segment, they're going to have to deploy people to go into that segment out there. It's a huge commitment for somebody to go into that area if they are not already present in the offline side of the business. We are getting to see the newbies in this business actually pull out of it because it's just not economically viable for them to go into that segment. I would have done the same if I were in their place. That's one segment.
Newcomers pretty much are taking a step back out of it because it's just not economically viable to go in there. The second is we are seeing a certain segment of businesses where they are basically saying that, look, their large revenue models is not around payment-based revenues. The large revenue model is around what they do around the financial services and how they monetize financial services. Hence, the segment of merchants that they want to focus on is completely different than an OMC. For example, an OMC does not need a loan today. Hence, this is not necessarily a segment which somebody would ideally want to go after. There is obviously a little bit of play out there, but that's not necessarily a segment that somebody wants to address in the market. For us, this is bread and butter. This is where we make our money.
As I have said it for a long period of time, we actually don't do any lending-related business in our company. We have no choice but to focus on that merchant base which will be able to pay for our technology that we deliver.
Perfect. Thank you so much for all the details.
Best regards.
Thank you.
Thanks Prakhar.
Thank you. Our next question is from Aryan Tripathi of Emkay Global . Please go ahead.
Hi, Aryan.
Aryan, could you unmute?
Go ahead, Aryan.
Aryan, you may ask your question now. There seems to be no response from this connection. We'll therefore move to our next participant. That is Gaurav Rateria of Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi, hope I'm audible.
Yes, Gaurav.
Congratulations on strong performance on operating profit and cash flows. I have actually three questions, Amrish. The first question is that you have significant amount of revenue pools in each of your segments. If you could help us to bridge the gap between the 17% and 21%-23.5% guidance, of which revenue pool we'll see an acceleration and which will help to give us comfort on bridging that gap. That's question number one. The question number two is, any color on what has been the revenue growth in the affordability business per se within the flow segment you had in FY 2026, and how much has been the same-store growth versus that of the expansion to the larger percentage of the terminals generating this revenue? That's question number two.
The last question, I was quite intrigued by the comment on the new segments that you're adding on employee expense, which probably will be dilutive to the CM, but may not be dilutive to your operating profit. If that is the correct understanding that I have, your conversion of the incremental contribution profit to your Adjusted EBITDA, that number ideally should improve more than 55%, which you are mentioning for your core business. Is that understanding correct? Thank you.
Let me start with the last point out there. There are two parts of the last point which you're making on the contribution margin side. If our contribution margin is in the 70%-75%, will we be able to capture more to the EBITDA line than what we have shown at 55%? The answer is yes. Why is the number at 55%, why is the number not at 65%, for example? It's because we don't want to give out a hard guidance where we feel we will not be able to deliver to it or not be able to achieve to it. 55% is a number that we feel super confident that we will not be able to miss. That's the reason why we explained that about two quarters back.
When it comes to contribution margin and, for example, on the employee benefit, that was an example. The reason I'm calling that out as an example is because what will be the accounting rules and how the financial model will operate, it's not clear to me today as we launch this product over the next 45 days to 60 days period. For all you know, it is entirely a 100% net revenue-based revenue recognition that we would have to do, then I see no fears when it comes to will the contribution margin be at 75% and higher. It could very well be higher on that. I just wanted to give this as an example of new business. I'm not giving specifics of what the contribution margin on this business is concerned. That was just on the last point.
In terms of the breakup of revenue growth, look, before we went to IPO, what we were sort of talking about is that we felt that the lowest growth will come out of the Infrastructure side of the business. We actually see about a 2%-3% improvement. Again, I'm not telling you hard numbers out there because I think it's unfair for me to give you hard guidance on segment-level revenues out there. We are getting to see that there'll be at least 2%-3% improvement on growth when it comes to Infrastructure business, which is really the POS and the deployments or, for that matter, payment gateway-based, classic transaction-based revenues that we get. That we are seeing actually grow a little bit higher than what we had assumed earlier. That was point number one.
The second thing is, when it comes to flow-based revenues, again, in the flow-based revenues, we had guided. Not guided, but we felt comfortable with where the growth rates would be. That I don't see any change in those growth rates, largely related to what we are getting to see in affordability, but also in the kind of services that we are continuing to add on the flow-based revenues. Just to give you specific examples on that one is, now that we have a lot of data related to consumers, that is our merchants, consumers, and about the merchant itself using AI, we are actually being able to create a nice, interesting revenue streams wherein we give them better insights about their consumers, data related to their consumers. We are starting to charge them for that services.
That's just a new revenue line which has been growing for us over the last two years. All of these new services that we are delivering is allowing us to keep the flow-based revenues to operate at the same growth levels where it was. The third area for us from a growth standpoint is going to be in terms of international markets. We have said this before, that we feel Southeast Asia, Middle East, and Africa is a very interesting play. We just launched our POS-based services, and you'll see a lot of marketing associated to our POS-based services when it comes to Singapore market. We launched our POS here in Singapore. Again, the argument is very simple. Why should an American company deliver payment-related services in the Southeast Asian markets?
Pine Labs, which has the best payment-related solution, should not be addressing the markets before. We are actually going proactively into markets and saying, "Let's try and win deals against the global majors when it comes to payments." At least two deals which we have won are direct head-to-head competition against global large payment companies, and we've actually won those deals. We do see international driving growth, and that's the one which is giving us the comfort around the guidance that we have given on growth.
Thank you. Just a question on the affordability revenue growth in FY 2026 and what will be that number for on same-store growth basis?
Sameer, have we given any color on that one? Can I leave this question to you based on the way we already
I think not that we've given a color as such, I think what is a big opportunity for us, Gaurav, is almost probably a third of the growth that we look for in this business comes from activating merchants. I'm not saying technically. Technically, all stores are activated. A large part of our effort is to m ake people aware of EMI as an option, both at a customer level and at a merchant level. We've seen significant, maybe as I said, maybe 25%-30% of the growth coming from activating merchants and stores.
Now, as we said, as we're moving into new categories like some of the categories, non-CDIT categories, I think activation will continue to play a very important role. If you've seen, even in our deck, we have given a ratio which we've been guiding for some time, saying that that's an improving ratio. A year back, that number of POS machines activated for flow and transaction, this includes all kinds of services that are at 21%. That's improved to 30%. Obviously, it starts with a small number and keeps multiplying thereafter.
I think that's a number which we continue to add to our growth for the broad guidance and ambitions given of 21%-23.5%.
Thank you and all the very best.
Thank you. A quick reminder to our participants, if you wish to ask a question, you may click on the raise hand icon.
I also in general want to proactively answer a question. The Payments and Infra business, while there might be a swing of 1% or 2% here and there, one thing that you can remain very confident is these are long-term infrastructure partnerships that we are building with banks and with retailers. Today, for a bank and a retailer to replace or displace Pine Labs is a nine months effort. Honestly, for us in our business to be able to see how the revenues are going to come through for the next nine months period, it's a very easy task there in front of us.
As I told you, a few percentage point here and there will move around, but a large revenue miss, I don't see happening in this business purely because we are able to see at least nine months in advance how that revenue pool is going to move around.
Thank you. Our next question is from Ramesh Shah, an investor. Please go ahead.
Am I audible?
Yes.
Hi, Amrish. Congrats on very good numbers, I must say.
Coming to the question, I wanted to understand if you have any thought process on entering the crypto game. That's the first one.
Ramesh, I have to say that investors always challenge us with questions which we have not been prepared for. I'm actually very happy to take up this question. Ramesh, answer around crypto is a very clear no. We have no interest in getting into crypto-related services. However, what is happening around stablecoins is so exciting today when it comes to international markets. See, I'll explain this in very simple words. When it comes to UPI, faster money movement has already been taken care of in India. There is no problem when it comes to me sending money to you or me sending money to a merchant because of the UPI infrastructure. Globally, that is a pain point, and stablecoins is definitely solving for that. We are getting to see stablecoin coming up in areas for faster movements.
May that be in person to person to merchant, or when it comes to bulk remittances related services, and I find that to be a very exciting area. That's point number one. Point number two, which is equally exciting, is in terms of what is going to happen in terms of programmable money. What I mean by programmable money is a certain amount of money can be used only for certain related services. That is a very interesting space where you can actually define where does this money go, and that programmability of money is what stablecoin is allowing you to solve for. We are actually fully ready with our infrastructure platform, where on a stablecoin-based account or a stablecoin-based wallet, a prepaid card with a Visa or a Master logo can get delivered in global markets.
For example, if there is a bank in UAE which wants to deliver a stablecoin-backed prepaid card, we've developed the entire back-end platform for that. It is a bank's business. Bank will get the consumer, but all the technology-related services getting paid on per transaction basis. Our infrastructure is fully ready. We are going to be starting in the next one month, actually sales activities to get more clients on the stablecoin-backed prepaid platform for us. Short answer to you is not in crypto, but stablecoin is a very exciting area. However, entirely in global markets and nothing to do with India.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Second is, are we planning any fundraising anytime soon?
No, we have no interest in raising funds. We are in a very comfortable position.
Ramesh, as we have put in the presentation, we have INR 2,700 crores of cash. We also are organically generating free cash flows. I think where we stand today, we are quite heavily capitalized for all the growth initiatives we have in mind.
Okay.
Any explosive kind of growth that can happen in near future because of VAS services picking up or while monetizing our digital infra that we've created over the years?
Look, we continue to add newer flow-based services and revenues. I have to say that it's every founder CEO's dream that we are going to find a Blinkit within our business, but not something which I'm ready to talk to on an investor call.
Okay.
Thanks, Ramesh.
Last but not the least, today, if you're going to issue some ESOP shares, what price will you issue them to your employees?
That's something that we've spoken quite clearly to the market, is we have taken a policy where we are going to issue out ESOPs today, in the range of where the current FMV is. There might be small ESOPs, which will be at deep discount, but they'll be very small and in between. Largely, in fact, all through FY 2026 also, all the ESOPs which we had issued have been at FMV or near to FMV and not at a deep discounted level.
Can you please share the?
Mr. Shah, I'm sorry. May we request you to return to the queue? There are several participants in queue.
FMV is not something which we can calculate. It is as per what the current stock price is.
It's based on the three-month market rate. It's driven by that, so it'll be more to the market price. Sorry, go ahead.
Thanks, Ramesh.
Thank you. Our next question is from Vijit Jain of Citi. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you. Can you hear me?
Yes, Vijit. Go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, Sameer. Hi, Amrish . Thanks for the additional color. A lot of additional color you've provided on this call. One question I have on the OMC business. You've said 130,000 terminals by end FY 2027. Amrish. I think I caught you saying 50,000 terminals deployed right now. Are we looking at 80,000 net new additions just from the three OMCs account? Is that how I should think about it?
Vijit, it's 50,000 pumps and it is about 130,000 POS machines out there. We've started in phase-wise taking over this. Right now, what I can tell you is, from what we project to be the steady state, we have deployed up to about 50%. When I say deployed, I'm talking in terms of volumes that we started to already capture. It is 50% of what we believe the steady state number as far as OMC is concerned. It's actually changing on a monthly basis. As we speak, it is at about 50,000. It is at 50% of the steady state number.
I see. 130,000 is not currently deployed right now.
It is in the process of deployment, Vijit.
Yeah, it's not been fully deployed, Vijit. The second piece to it is, when I'm saying 130,000, when I'm saying 50% of the volume which have come in, let's say we would have deployed 80,000. 65,000, 80,000, 15,000 transactions have not started to take off. Transaction might be taking off in the next few months out there. Actual deployment would be higher than 50%, which has already been completed. Volumes that we are getting is about 50% of what we believe it will be when we reach the full 130,000.
Understood, Amrish. Amrish, I think you alluded to it just now, there was another comment in the letter which said you now have 50% market share in fuel retail outlets. I think my broader question here was, when you get to that level of processing 50% of digital payments in fuel retail outlets, are there material new value-added services opportunities that you have a line of sight that you can unlock? If you can give a broad scale or any flavor on what those could be. When you have that kind of scale in this that you can unlock. That's my second question on this, I have an additional question on gift card business.
Vijit, let me give you background. In fact, the petroleum segment business for Pine Labs is one of the oldest business for us, and there we do everything from fuel pump automation. I will break it up into two parts. One is the forecourt, which you have out there, the forecourt controller, the integration into the forecourt controller platform. That's one of the services that we do. Second is purely in terms of payment and payment infrastructure deployment. That's second area. Third is based on the payment infrastructure, what is the transaction-based revenues or flow-based revenues. That is the third area that we make revenues in. Fourth i s what we do is the loyalty-related services. For example, with IndianOil, we have already announced this.
The IndianOil loyalty card, the XTRAPOWER loyalty card of IndianOil, for the next five years, the entire end-to-end management of that product is going to be done by us. It's the loyalty-related services that we have taken over for IndianOil. Fifth is even now as we speak, that there are newer tenders which are coming up for newer services as IoT gets implemented. IoT-related newer tenders which are coming up from the OMCs, we are bidding for those. There are multiple revenue lines which we have from OMCs. Again, these are the kind of nuances which we are not able to explain very well is when you come to an OMC, it's not just about just the terminal, it's multiple services that we do. The similar thing which we are doing for other segments also.
It is not just the device or the terminal that we are deploying. You're right, it's a multiple revenue stream that we have from these OMCs.
Got it. Amrish, is this-
By the way, Vijit, I'll give you an answer on this XTRAPOWER one, because it's an L1 tendering, it's an open number out there. It's an INR 60 crores contract. Nothing to do with terminals, by the way. Purely in terms of managing this, it's an INR 60 crores-INR 65 crores kind of a revenue business for a five-year period, where we are basically taking over the loyalty program out there. As I said, it's an L1 tendering, so it's an open number. That's why I'm just explaining that number in detail.
Understood, Amrish. Amrish, how much of this would be driving the growth acceleration from 19% to, let's say, a midpoint of 22% that you're guiding for?
Again, that's a good question out there. I'm just doing I would say almost 30, 40 basis points would be because of this deal that we have already bagged.
Got it. Thanks.
The answer we gave you of 2%- 3% incremental growth in one of the earlier participants, some of these, like the mid-market segment where Amrish was saying we are becoming more visible on the street. There are certain segments, OMC contract, all of this are giving us the confidence for the 2%- 3% incremental growth over what we're already doing.
Understood, Sameer. Thanks. My second question is on the Gift Cards business. Amrish, you said somewhere in between that when you do distribution and gift cards, and I think, Sameer, you said that as well, it's lower CM, but it's absolute a bit accretive. Did I understand that right? If I know this right, distribution is mostly in your India Gift Cards business. You do less of distribution in international. From that whole I&A segment point of view, is it right that if you do more of distribution in India, it's contribution margin dilutive, international is more contribution margin dilutive, and the rest of your Gift Cards business is at a higher margin level. Is that what is going on here?
I'll let Sameer answer in detail, but I want to just give a highlight number. In our entire revenue numbers, distribution is the only number which is at a gross revenue level purely because of accounting policies. Everything else is 100% net revenue. That's just at a high level. Sameer, you want to go through the next detailing?
Just a couple of questions, Vijit, to set the context. Distribution and processing we do are not two separate businesses. That's an integrated offering we give the brand. If a brand comes to us, for example, XYZ brand comes to us, they don't come to us to say, "Okay, process my back-end prepaid card." We actually come to you with a solution saying, "Listen, we can help you acquire customers," because creating a wallet, creating a prepaid card, helps you retain, acquire, and grow customers and kind of create a lifetime value for that customer. Now, to do that, we have to do a great institutional-grade processing. Obviously, in processing, the large part of the cost is your tech cost, AWS cost, and people cost. That sits below the contribution margin. The flow-through on processing is almost 90%, 98%. On distribution, there's no incremental cost.
The only cost is either what you do yourself or what you do to your partners where you have to share some part of the listing fees or something like that. That business fuels two things for us. A, makes us an attractive program manager for the brand who looks not just at the back-end part but as a solution to acquire customers. B, it also helps us improve our processing because with that edge, we can also multiply the processing efficacy which comes out of it. Therefore, if you see this integrated business model differentiates us versus just someone who's on either the distribution side or on the processing side.
Having said that, given that our traditional market when we started this business was in India, we were able to build a very strong market share across distribution and obviously a very high market share on processing, given that we are a preferred partner here. In the international market also, which is growing at 44% for us, as we have shown in the presentation, we started out by processing for a few brands. Like we have given out some guidance earlier that we have done Woolworths with certain airlines, et cetera. Now we are also building distribution progress because that's an integrated offering, again, that brands look for. As we are stronger on distribution side here, but we are definitely growing traction on the distribution as far as the international markets are concerned.
Look at this business as an integrated offering where at the CM level you might see some changes, but at a flow-through level, you'll see it slightly differently. That's why my guidance to the street would be look at this as an integrated model and not like two separate businesses running within one.
Makes complete sense, Sameer. Thanks for that. That was very clear. Just one last question. There were two comments on non-electronics and affordability piece in the presentation. I think you've said somewhere that it grew 40% and somewhere that 60% Yo Y growth in volumes. Is that broadly right, 40% growth in value in non-electronics affordability and 60% in terms of volumes?
No, I think what we guided is that the full-year number is 60%. Last quarter was about 40%-45%. What we wanted to say is on a full-year basis, this category, as Amrish said at the beginning of the call, is growing significant traction. As Amrish said, some sectors and sub-sectors will keep going through pluses and minuses. See, affordability is probably 10%-12% penetration of the total GTV in the market. There is a significant headroom for growth here.
Sameer, I'm going to stop you there and I just want to listen. This is an important point which I wanted to just highlight out there. We think the affordability-based segment, we are playing in a market which is less than 10% as of now. I think there's lots to go and I'll give you some more color on it. What we are doing is when the consumer walks into the store, consumer already has a credit line. There is a massive segment which, for example, the Bajaj Finance of the world go after this where they deliver new credit at the point of purchase. May that be a PL or a consumer durable loan, that's a segment which we are today not covering because we don't have enough NBFC coverage out there. That's one.
Second is, there is a post-purchase installment payments program also which happens out there. That's a second piece which one needs to cover for. Third is a classic PL where somebody is saying, "You know what? I'm doing a renovation of the house. I'm taking an INR 300,000 loan. I'm going to spend INR 250,000 on the house, but I'm going to do INR 50,000 for white goods out there." All of these areas, we're not even playing in that area yet. I think the affordability segment is much broader than just this one area. Second is when I say affordability, today we look at it purely on the lending side, but there is lending, there is insurance, there is trade-in, there is early buybacks, all of those services also which gets clubbed on that affordability side. Sorry, Sameer, you can continue now.
No, I think Amrish, you covered it. What I wanted to say is that all of this blended put together contribute to how we grow in that segment. Therefore, this call-out that we have done of newer categories that we are bringing in, Amrish mentioned EVs and others, is what is driving and giving us confidence on our directed growth which is there in that segment.
Got it. Any broad number you can give on what is non-electronics right now, just in terms of scales relative to electronics?
We don't give individual segment cuts, Vijit, but what you have to know is that-
Vijit is small. I would say it's less than 5%.
Okay.
That's the reason why we called it out also in that note out there, we want to invest there.
Got it. Understood. Thank you so much.
In online also, by the way. By the way, when I say affordability, it's not just offline. We do a lot of affordability in the Online segment also. I think in the online segment, there is a larger market to capture, not necessarily in CDIT, but also in the non-CDIT segment.
Understood. Thank you so much. Those were super helpful. Best of luck for the rest.
Thank you, Vijit.
Thank you. Our next question is from Aryan Tripathi of Emkay Global. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Am I audible?
Yeah, Aryan, we can hear you now. Go ahead, please.
Congratulations on a good set of numbers. My question is directed towards the affordability business. Historically, we have struggled to convert accrual profits into cash profits, primarily due to the heavy networking capital requirements in the affordability segment. This quarter, however, marked a sharp trend reversal. My understanding is that we have resorted to bill discounting that has improved our receivables collections, driving INR 102 crores in early settlement-related cash inflows this quarter. This resulted in a strong EBITDA to OCFR conversion of 71% for the fiscal. The trade-off has been that we have lower take rates in the affordability business. From my calculations, the take rates were as high as 35 basis points in the quarter before. Now it has gone down to 30 basis points. My question is that, is this the new normal for the affordability business?
Is 30 basis points take rate and a shortened working capital cycle from a 60-day cycle to now a 45-day cycle, is this the new normal? If the working capital cycle is going to shorten further, can the take rates be maintained at 30 basis points?
Aryan, I'm going to let my CFO answer this question, but as the CEO, I want to give you a general direction. I think the Street has told us very clearly, saying that they don't necessarily like the fact that our working capital is getting bloated. We've taken note of that, and that's exactly what we've tried to solve for it, because obviously, the messaging has been very clear to us. Now, we've been very clear to you also is that by making those changes, is that going to have a material impact on our financials? The answer is no, and that's something that we wanted to show the Street very clearly. Yes, you are right in what you are pointing out there. Now, is that impact going to be 35 basis or 30 basis? Honestly, that's not how I run the business.
Sameer , do you have any color to give on that?
No, I have a clear answer, Aryan. Thanks for this, I think very detailed work on asking this question. Two things here. Our working capital was typically in the range of 14%-15%, and we have remained in that range as far as working capital beyond the early settlement is concerned, and that's what we have guided, and that's what we have told the Street as well. Last year when the working capital last quarter came at 22%, we had explained it's cyclical to festivity and will normalize on a full year basis. We have delivered that. That's come through multiple things. Certain one-time reversals that happened because of Q3, obviously, that panned out as we had explained to the Street. Second, we have been a serious drive on collections, efficiencies, working capital, all of that.
That's contributed to working capital efficiency, not just at an early settlement level, but beyond that as well. Coming to early settlement, there are two things here. One, there is a cost associated with this, which is typically, we are taking some of this to off-balance sheet. As Amrish said, we want to do that. On a full year basis, we have grown that business, and you've seen on a full year basis, in one quarter you would have seen a reversal because we focused on closing out a lot of clients, et cetera, on the factorization side. On a full year basis, you see that has also contributed. If you see in the INR 400 crores, there has been an incremental deployment in ICB as well. Does that impact our business in a way? No, answer is no.
Answering to your question on take rate, see the flow business take rate of 30 basis points is a factor of multiple line items of revenue. It's not just about affordability. If you look at pure affordability, take rates are quite stable and strong. There are other things like UPI, there is DCC, et cetera, some of which was slightly impacted because of travel restrictions, et cetera. If you look at it as a subset, you see that as a trend at lower number, but that's an aggregation of multiple line items, not necessarily about affordability. Our affordability take rates continue to remain extremely strong.
We can see the take rates going back up to 35 basis points.
It's a mix. I'll tell you it's a mix. It depends where the mix lands up, to be very candid about it. For example, UPI volumes go up, but the take rate goes down, you'll see the take rate as a mix changing. It's very difficult to guide, but intra-segmental yields, as we are seeing, remains very strong and no pressure on that at all. Because of ICB otherwise.
Got it. Is bill discounting going to be a quarter-specific thing for this quarter?
No, no, it's a program that we are running. In fact, we had to onboard a lot of brands. It requires a lot of collaboration with banks and brands. It's not automatic because you have to work with them on documentation closures and all. I think we have had a great push, and I think this is not going to take away all of our ICB balances, but yes, it is going to be a program and not a one-time activity. It's a program that we have been running. We have just accelerated it through our conversations with brands and banks to get it on this platform.
Thanks for that. Just a housekeeping question. I see that there is INR 111 crores financing cash flow related to the bill discounting number, but I see no spike on the financing cost despite that. Are the affordability revenues being recognized on a net basis already, adjusting for the interest expense related to bill discounting, is there something else that going on?
There's no change in the accounting. It's consistent with what we are doing. The source of financing can change. Other than that, I think we charge tech fees and all of these are our internal working capital requirements, which are there. There's no change in the accounting because of this change other than what is seen in the balance sheet because of factorization.
Thank you. Thanks a lot.
Amrish, there are a bunch of questions on the chat box, which a lot of it is already answered except one from Arvind Arora. If we can take that, please.
Sure. I'll just read it out. The question is from Arvind Arora. His question is, "GTV growth is around 50%, whereas revenue growth is around 19%. Is there headroom to increase monetization?
The short answer is yes. As we have explained this before, our revenue models vary by the segment that we play in. In some cases it is purely based by the number of transactions. In some cases it is on the value which is associated to that transaction. Our constant endeavor is to obviously get to more value-based revenue coming to us. Yes, a gain, the short answer is yes, there is a place for us to cover that gap.
Arvind, also to add to what Amrish said, if you see the layers on value pools that we build out, actually covers that quite well. The distribution layer is largely a linear layer where almost all of our revenues are recurring in nature. In fact, one important number for you guys to know what is most of our revenues are all recurring in nature. The base layer is largely MSF, which is rentals. Now we are getting to monetize GTV. You can see the volume of throughput, which is 50% growth, our revenue growth of 19%. A large part of the incremental data will come from the fact that we are monetizing GTV through multiple cohorts of revenue we have within the flow and affordability business. The answer to that is very clear, yes.
Thank you. That was the last question.
Thank you.
I would now like to hand the floor back to Mr. Amrish Rau for closing comments.
Thank you very much for taking this call early in the morning. I hope we've been able to give more color on our business. Both Ritesh and Sameer are available for the conversations over the next few quarters. Thank you very much.
Thank you everyone.
Thank you, Mr. Rau, and thank you, Mr. Kamath. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the entire Pine Labs leadership team, we would like to sincerely thank you for taking time to join us today and for your continued interest and support of Pine Labs. If you have any follow-up questions that were not addressed during today's call, please feel free to reach out to our investor relations team and we would be happy to assist you. This concludes today's call.
Thank you.
We wish you have a pleasant day ahead. Thank you everyone. Bye-bye.