Mumbai: Fintech firm BillDesk reported a net profit of INR 142 crore for the financial year 2022-23, down by 5.1% from INR 150 crore in the year-ago period.

The company's revenue from operations grew 9.6% to INR 2,678 crore from INR 2,443 crore in the same period last year, regulatory filings sourced from startup data platform TheKredible showed.

BillDesk, a B2B Fintech platform, has not been able to demonstrate business growth in double digits in FY23 despite struggling to show momentum in the previous few years. The company's profit, which fell by 5.1% in FY23, was also trending downward.

The company has recently recovered, and the consolidated financial statements filed with the Registrar of Companies show that BillDesk's operating revenue increased by 9.6% to INR 2,678 crore from INR 2,443 crore in FY23.

BillDesk charges fees for the processing and settlement services of electronic transactions — and collections from these services accounted for more than 70% of the total operating revenue in FY23. The rest of the amount comes from loyalty programs for clients and the sale of products. Nearly, INR 87.15 crore was received via interest and gain on financial assets, which took the total revenue of the firm to INR 2,765 crore in FY23.

As per the report of startup intelligence platform TheKredible, the fintech startup has spent the most on technical services (bank fees and service charges) which formed 83.8% of the total expenditure. This cost rose 9.3% to INR 2,146 crore during FY23 from INR 1,963.6 crore in FY22.

A major part of the expenses came from technical services, which included bank fees and service charges, followed by the employee cost that went up by 35.4% to INR 245 crore. The expenses from employee benefits increased 35.4% to INR 245 crore during the last fiscal year from INR 181 crore in FY22.

Employee benefits expenses increased 35.4% to INR 245 crore during the last fiscal year from INR 181 crore in FY22. The company’s burn on data, communication, legal, and information technology catalyzed its total expenses by 11.6% to INR 2,561 crore in FY23.

The fintech firm was losing momentum when it cancelled its mega-deal with Prosus-backed PayU Payments. The investment arm of South African multinational Naspers, Prosus terminated its USD 4.7 billion acquisition of BillDesk in October 2022.

BillDesk’s operating cash flows turned negative to INR 121.63 crore in FY23. In FY22, it recorded a positive cash flow of INR 39.83 crore. The company’s EBITDA margin and ROCE also worsened to 9.23% and 7.75% during the same period.

BillDesk was founded in 2000 by three former Arthur Andersen executives — M N Srinivasu, Ajay Kaushal and Karthik Ganapathy. It primarily earns revenue from transaction processing fees, e-top up of services, and loyalty points redemption fees.

BillDesk is one of the largest bill payment companies in the country. As per data from NPCI-owned NBBL (NPCI Bharat Billpay), it generated 31 crore bills on the biller side and 25 crore on the customer side in February.

While the revenue figures remain competitive as compared to its peers like Razorpay and CCAvenue, the scale has been muted while profit continues to fall from INR 245.5 crore in FY21.

While Razorpay clocked a 54% growth in its operating revenues at INR 2,279 crore, Infibeam’s CC Avenue recorded a 51.6% jump at INR 1962 crore in FY23.

Pine Labs on the other hand reported a 37.3% operating revenue growth at INR 1280.5 crore.