Billdesk’s revenue for FY18 rises 40% to Rs 929 cr, profit up 15%

BENGALURU: Payments company Billdesk, which recently crossed the $1-billion valuation mark, posted a 40% increase in revenue from operations and 15% growth in profit for fiscal 2018.

For the year through March 2018, Billdesk reported a profit of Rs 148 crore on revenue of Rs 929 crore, show its filings with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, sourced from Tofler. Global payments processor Visa recently took a minority stake in Billdesk at a valuation estimated to be as high as $1.8 billion. The deal marked the first investment in India by Visa, which had previously taken stakes in payments companies Square and Stripe in the US.

Mumbai-based Billdesk has seen strong growth in revenue, rising 30% in FY17 and 40% in FY16, despite being hit by falling merchant discount rates — the fee charged from a merchant for each transaction. Its employee benefit expenses for FY18 rose to Rs 43 crore from Rs 37 crore.

The platform allows customers to use net banking or cards to pay their bills online by tying up with utility service providers and connecting them with banks through a payment gateway. It competes with CC Avenues and PayU.

Billdesk works with billers across 33 locations, including electricity providers and DTH companies.

It had received in-principle approval from the Reserve Bank of India to operate as a Bharat Bill Payment Operating Unit under the Bharat Bill Payment System, a centralised bill payment system that allows users to use a single website to pay all bills such as mobile phone and electricity.

Visa collaborated with Billdesk last year to allow card owners to make utility bill payments through the BharatQR.