ASX-listed payment provider Findi, backed by the Flannery family, is set to gain a licence enabling it to splash its name on thousands of branded ATMs across India.

The fintech junior’s stock is up 430 per cent over the past year and settled at $3.20, earning it a $168 million market cap, before it went into a trading halt on April 11. “The market is starting to understand the opportunity we have in India,” Nicholas Smedley, Findi’s chairman, said. “We have significant Australian-based funds investing in the company.”

Late last year a pre-IPO fund of Indian tycoon Ajay Piramal’s Piramal Group invested more than $37 million in Findi’s Indian subsidiary, TSI India, via convertible securities that are designed to turn into equity in the event of a float.

People familiar with the matter said TSI India has now been granted provisional approval for the licence that will allow Findi to deploy its own branded ATMs across the economy.

The company expects to rebrand about 4000 ATMs which it already operates for the State Bank of India during the 2024-25 financial year. It owns and operates 12,000 ATMs for large financial institutions such as State Bank of India and the Central Bank of India.

The seven-year contract with State Bank of India comes with a three-year extension. The bulk of Findi’s operations are in India.

Findi said the contract will offer between $500 million and $620 million in revenue were it to last for 10 years. “Locking in significant revenue and earnings for the next 10 years means Findi is now even better placed to take advantage of India’s transition from the cash economy into the digital economy over the next decade and beyond,” Mr Smedley said.

The company also offers digital payments and banking solutions. Mr Smedley said the subsidiary has aspirations for a listing in 2025 or 2026, possibly on the Bombay Stock Exchange.

The Piramal transaction valued TSI India at $190 million and the fund has captured investment from Canadian pension funds, according to Mr Smedley. “They did significant due diligence and this is an endorsement of our strategy,” he said.

Explaining the valuation, Mr Smedley previously said “[it] was based on effectively a 10 times multiple on last year’s earnings”.

Findi was previously known as Vortiv. In 2020, Vortiv sold its cybersecurity business to CyberCX, which has won Australian government contracts.

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