Protean eGov Technologies Ltd Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: Prakash Kapadia - Kapadia Financial Services - Analyst : A couple of questions from my end. If I were to look at revenues, they are up 7%. Suresh despite the low base of last year, and if I were to look at the last year base, the rest of the year also had very muted revenue growth. So for FY26, can we expect this revenue momentum to continue and revenue growth? Some color, if you could give, should be high double-digit, it could be very high double-digit? What kind of revenue growth looks possible for this year? And secondly, employee expenses are up 40% this quarter. So what is leading to this increase? Is it just the number addition for the employees? Is it annual hikes? If you could give some insight, that would be helpful. Those are my two questions.

Question: Kamlesh Bagmar - Lotus Asset Managers - Analyst : Sir, one question on the part of your, like, reporting. Like if I see last year your presentation, then you were like, say, the EBITDA numbers were INR35 crores-odd -- INR45 crores-odd and this time around it is INR35 crores. I know that you have took for that ECL provisioning. But if I adjust for that, then your EBITDA without other income is down 37% year-over-year and your margins are 7.8% if I exclude the other income. And on the net cash side, this net cash, or like cash, that has been there for the last three years. So even three years back, it was INR800-odd crores. So entire of the EBITDA, the reported EBITDA based on your presentation, is driven by the other

Question: Kamlesh Bagmar - Lotus Asset Managers - Analyst : I'm just referring to your presentation, last year presentation. Your last year presentation clearly mentioned that adjusted EBITDA is INR45 crores. And this quarter, you are showing the same EBITDA at INR35 crores. So there should be consistency on the recovery side?

Question: Rohan Mandora - Equirus Securities - Analyst : Sir, I just want to understand on the international business, we had won a couple of projects earlier. So, any further updates on the project wins there? And how should one look at the revenues in this year from the international business?

Question: Rohan Mandora - Equirus Securities - Analyst : Sure. And in terms of the new business initiatives that we have and INR300 crores of pipeline at least that is there, so what is the realistic revenues that we can book in FY26 and '27 out of these?

Question: Rohan Mandora - Equirus Securities - Analyst : Sure. And thirdly, sir, on the processing charges, how should one look at it incrementally? Like Pan business clearly contributes a good amount of the processing charges. But with the new businesses coming in, what proportion of the processing charges will flow from new businesses? What kind of metrics should we compare it with? Would it be fair to have a certain ratio of total revenues? Or only certain businesses will have a contribution of -- contribution to processing charges? Some clarity around that would be helpful.

Question: Rohan Mandora - Equirus Securities - Analyst : Sure. And sir, with the PAN 2.0 project allocated already, the announcement is there in the media, any further clarity we have on the role that Protean can play?

Question: Rohan Mandora - Equirus Securities - Analyst : So on the distribution part of -- the distribution leg of it, we are still awaiting further details?

Question: Rohan Mandora - Equirus Securities - Analyst : Right. And not in the current setting, but I was more asking from the point of view, once the PAN 2.0 goes live, what happens then?

Question: Shubham Sehgal - SiMPL - Analyst : Yes. My first question was, so the order we received for Bima Sugam and CERSAI, and the whole order book that we have. So just kind of mandates, when will they start commercializing and have we already booked some revenue in this quarter? Will we start booking the revenue in this financial year? And what kind of margins can we expect from these mandates? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. AUGUST 07, 2025 / 9:30AM, PROO.NS - Q1 2026 Protean eGov Technologies Ltd Earnings Call Will the margins be like high single-digit, mid-teens? What kind of margins can we see there? And similarly, what are the other areas or the mandates that we are actively pursuing right now to drive growth? That is my first question.

Question: Shubham Sehgal - SiMPL - Analyst : Okay. Okay. Got it. My next question was that historically, we used to earn operational margins around -- like around 20%. And if we see like

Question: Shubham Sehgal - SiMPL - Analyst : Okay. But like apart from, let's say, our identity services business where we are facing pricing pressures, our other businesses also -- is it like in the last 5, 10 years.

Question: Shubham Sehgal - SiMPL - Analyst : Yes, that is for -- I mean to ask for our other businesses also in 5 to 10 years, is it like price like realizations have gone down or even like some pricing pressure has been there.

Question: Shubham Sehgal - SiMPL - Analyst : These products --

Question: Shubham Sehgal - SiMPL - Analyst : Okay. Just a follow-up on this, if I can ask. Yes. So as you mentioned, like we have been investing. So we have been also making a lot of investments in the open digital ecosystem that we have been building. So I just wanted to ask, so like I think maybe one year or so ago, we were very optimistic about ONDC itself. But then after that, we have no news when the fees will start on ONDC and we would get additional revenue or, let's say, recurring revenue from there as well. So how confident you are that in all these different open digital ecosystems where we are putting forward investments, like maybe in the next three years, five years, like can it become a significant part of our revenue stream? Like how confident you are of that? Like what is our thought process around it?

Question: Shubham Sehgal - SiMPL - Analyst : Yes. So I mean to ask about only the digital ecosystem because those have not really been started monetizing, like apart from the fee that we get, like the platform fee or the monetization part has still not started for any system yet. So I was asking per se that, like what do you think about that?

Question: Vineet Markan - Giant Software Labs - Analyst : First of all, I would like to congratulate the management for the delivering a very steady and a strong set of performance in a challenging environment. And in this regards, I would like to ask a question. Like my first question is that you have won some RFPs like milestone RFP like eKYC 2.0 and Bima Sugam, which seems to me to be a very like pathbreaking kind of a step. So if you can elaborate the kind of potential these initiatives can bring to the company maybe 5 years time, 10 years down the line because these are new areas of growth, that would be very good for me, if you can give some light on this?

Question: Vineet Markan - Giant Software Labs - Analyst : And sir for the clarity, just an add-on question on this. So if you can help me also to understand the kind of the pipeline, which is there in the RFP stage and how well Protean is placed to capture that set where we are very strongly placed and we are confident and what stage of those RFP we are at, either bidding stage or we have already won? So if you can give this color to that, it would be very useful for us to map it out.

Question: Siddhartha Prakash - Avendus Spark - Analyst : I just want to ask one question. With the PAN 2.0 project consolidating all PAN and PAN services into a single unified platform managed by LTIMindtree, what is the anticipated impact on Protean's existing revenue streams and long-term role as an intermediary? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. AUGUST 07, 2025 / 9:30AM, PROO.NS - Q1 2026 Protean eGov Technologies Ltd Earnings Call

Question: Siddhartha Prakash - Avendus Spark - Analyst : Okay. Yes. Just one more question. What's the plan to offset tax services volatility? Are pension or identity services scalable to become major contributors here?

Question: Kunal Bhatia - Dalal & Broacha Stock Broking Pvt ltd. - Analyst : Sir, I just had a question on the PAN services business. So this time around, on a Y-o-Y basis, we have gained 500 basis point market share. There is a 2% growth in there. But if we look at it in terms of volume, the volume has remained almost the same, which was INR1 crore last year. Even this year, we are at the same INR1 crore. 2 So a, what was the reason of this 2% rise? Was it a better realization? And secondly, how do we see this trajectory going forward now that we have a higher market share?

Question: Kunal Bhatia - Dalal & Broacha Stock Broking Pvt ltd. - Analyst : Okay. And sir, basically, in this quarter in specific, the volume is the same, but despite that the 2% growth, what was the reason for that?

Question: Kunal Bhatia - Dalal & Broacha Stock Broking Pvt ltd. - Analyst : Got it. And in terms of -- just if you could give us some sense on how has the eSignPro business gaining traction? How have we seen the ramp-up, say, on a month-on-month or a Q-o-Q basis? And where do you see this run rate ending in the current year?

Question: Prem Luniya - Astute Investment Management Private Limited - Analyst : So sir, I had a question about the new businesses growth as we have been talking about a few businesses like the ONDC business or the agri stack business in the past, but it seems like they have not turned out as we thought of. REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. AUGUST 07, 2025 / 9:30AM, PROO.NS - Q1 2026 Protean eGov Technologies Ltd Earnings Call I just wanted to understand that this view of having 25% to 30% of the business coming from the new businesses, which would be the major things which you see as of now who can contribute to, let's say, become a INR50 crores or INR100 crores business because that is the scale they will have to reach to contribute around INR25 crores, INR30 crores to the overall top line? And also, sir, this is on the background of that we have grown our employee expense from around INR75 crores to now around a run rate of -- from this quarter, if we take a run rate of around INR200 crores plus. So how is this contributing to the top line is the view to understand?

Question: Prem Luniya - Astute Investment Management Private Limited - Analyst : Sure, sir. So just a follow-up on the product businesses like Protean RISE and eSignPro. Can you see like in next one or two years, this can contribute around INR1,500 crores? Can -- do they have that opportunity? And do you think that adoption will happen on the customer side?

Question: Prem Luniya - Astute Investment Management Private Limited - Analyst : Sure, sir. And will it be margin accretive for us? Or will it be largely on the same line? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. AUGUST 07, 2025 / 9:30AM, PROO.NS - Q1 2026 Protean eGov Technologies Ltd Earnings Call

Question: Sumangal Pugalia - RaRe Enterprise - Analyst : I have a follow-up on the previous question. How many customers do we have for eSignPro and RISE With Protean? And if you can share some trends, recent trends on client additions?

Question: Sumangal Pugalia - RaRe Enterprise - Analyst : Sure. But --