MUMBAI: Fino Payments Bank, which made its debut on Monday, is in search of a strategic partner to raise Rs 200 crore. The newest differentiated bank also hopes to go public over the next four years. Capital is needed for expansion and Fino prefers to raise it from a strategic investor rather than a financial investor. It already counts ICICI Bank and state-run BPCL as strategic investors who own 20 per cent each in the payments bank. Fino had raised Rs 400 crore from its existing investors, and is looking a third shareholder to avoid breaching the shareholding caps.
“We had a requirement of around Rs 600 crore, but raised only Rs 400 crore in capital in the last round. We will be raising Rs 150-200 crore in the next few months,” said Rishi Gupta, managing director & CEO, Fino.
Speaking to reporters after formally launching the bank’s operations, he said the company would consider hitting the capital markets in two-and-a-half to four years. As per regulations, the bank has to list itself once its net worth cross Rs 500 crore. “We will start thinking about an IPO in 2019 and do the fund raising later. We will do the IPO before we complete four years of operations.”
Founded in 2006, Fino’s turnover stood at Rs 350 crore in FY17, but incurred huge expenses in the run-up to becoming a payments bank. It expanded its workforce to 4,000 from 2,500. It has presence in 14 states through 410 branches and 50,000 distribution points, including 25,000 business correspondent outlets, 5,000 retail outlets of BPCL and 20,000 of its own smaller outlets. Going further, the revenue share from business correspondent activity to commercial banks will grow but reduce to 20 per cent of the pie in the next five years.
The brass tacks
Fino was founded in 2006 and its turnover stood at H350 crore in FY17, but it incurred huge expenses in the run-up to becoming a payments bank. It expanded aggressively and nearly doubled its workforce from 2,500 to 4,000. It has 410 branches in 14 states and 50,000 distribution points including 25,000 business correspondents.