Airtel Payments Bank records 69% increase in revenue, losses mount to Rs 272 Cr in FY18

Airtel Payments Bank Limited, the banking arm of Airtel, has revealed its financial details for FY18. The company recorded over Rs 160 crore in revenue in FY18, a 68.6 per cent increase from the previous fiscal.

The Sunil Bharti Mittal-led company had also reported an increase of 11.68 per cent in losses to Rs 272 crore in FY18 as compared to Rs 244 crore in FY17, revealed Business Intelligence platform Tofler.

Launched in September 2016, Airtel Payments Bank started gaining popularity in 2017, however, the company has faced a topsy-turvy situation over Aadhaar-based e-KYC since December 2017.

The increase in loss may be due to the sudden fall in e-KYC verification as RBI and UIDAI had barred the company to enroll new customers.

Now, Airtel has got full-fledged licence to add new customers as per the latest guidelines by RBI.

The financial statement also mentioned that Airtel Payments Bank had increased its expenditure to Rs 433 crore in FY18 as compared to Rs 339 crore in previous fiscal.

As far as the total deposit is concerned Airtel has witnessed a remarkable growth to Rs 290 crore in FY18  from a mere 68 crore in FY17. The total deposit by top four payments bank including Airtel Payment bank, Paytm Payment bank, Fino Payment bank, and India Post Payment bank, was also highlighted in a recent RTI.

However, the accumulated deposit by top four payments banks was quite low as of May 2018, the RTI revealed. Airtel Payments Bank was on top position followed by Paytm Payments bank.

While Paytm and Fino payment bank have been asked by the Banking regulator to stop enrolling new customers, Airtel Payments Bank, and India Post Payment Bank have the opportunity to bring more customers to their platform.