Fintech firm CASHe’s profit grows almost 8X in FY22

Lending startup CASHe has made a strong comeback in FY22 after witnessing a pandemic-driven slump in its scale during FY21. The eight-year-old firm managed to grow its revenue by over 2X along with an impressive eight-fold spike in profits in the fiscal year ending March 2022.

CASHe's operating revenue surged 2.36X to Rs 247.91 crore in FY22 from Rs 104.69 crore in FY21, according to its consolidated financial statements with the Registrar of Companies.

CASHe provides millennial-focused credit products, including personal loans with tenures of 2 to 12 months and ticket sizes between Rs 7,000 to Rs 3 lakh. It also enables credit lines and BNPL products in partnership with Myntra, Uber, Amazon, and others. 

Interest on loans accounted for 79.3% of its total collection, which grew 2.3X to Rs 196.61 crore in FY22 from Rs 84.64 crore in FY21.

Income from processing fees on loans and technology services surged 2.5X and 2X to Rs 30.8 crore and Rs 14.39 crore, respectively, during FY22. CASHe also booked Rs 6.11 crore as the income from facilitation, sourcing of loans and bad debt recovered during FY22.

CASHe claims over Rs 7,200 crore of disbursal across 2.1 million loans. Its app has been downloaded over 30 million times.

On the cost side, finance i.e. interest paid on borrowings formed 21.3% of the total expenditure. This spending grew two-fold to Rs 44.66 crore in FY22 from Rs 20.36 crore in the previous fiscal year. Importantly, the company has a total borrowing of Rs 453 crore including current and non-current loans.

Its employee benefit expanded by 92.9% to Rs 30.5 crore in FY22 from Rs 15.81 crore in FY21. It also includes Rs 2.88 crore ESOP expenses, which are non-cash in nature. Advertisement and consumer acquisition cost for CASHe jumped 3.58X to Rs 28.26 crore in FY22 from Rs 7.89 crore in FY21.

The company added another Rs 15.12 crore as collection and verification costs taking its total expenditure up by 111.3% to Rs 209.36 crore in FY22 from Rs 99.09 crore during FY21.

With over 2X growth in scale and cash burn under control, CASHe’s net profit spiked 7.7X to Rs 33.88 crore in FY22 from Rs 4.37 crore in FY21. Its ROCE and EBITDA margin improved to 21.61% and 35.22%, respectively. On a unit level, CASHe spent Re 0.84 to earn a single unit of operating revenue in FY22.

CASHe continues to demonstrate the opportunity in the loans space, one reason why every fintech company wants to have a play in the space. However, success depends on a number of factors, not least of which is ability to appraise credit worthiness, and even more importantly, collect in case of delays. 

CASHe’s sheer volume of loans indicate the approach it has – focusing on its core TG rather than any particular loan category. While the average ticket size is about Rs 35,000, we have no doubt it has a very broad range of loan buckets when it comes to customers right now. This places the firm well to sense any change in market dynamics, and go for course corrections, besides future expansions as a funnel for larger loans it can pass on to bigger partners.