Thank you, operator, and good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to ICRA's earnings call for the fourth quarter and for the year ending 2026.

I'll take you through the key highlights for the quarter and the year, share some important updates, and then outline how we're positioned getting into this financial year, FY 2027. Let me begin with headline financial performance for the last quarter of the previous financial year.

We delivered a strong Q4 performance, with consolidated revenue increasing by 28.4% year-on-year. Growth was led by the research and analytics segment, which recorded a 56.8% year-on-year increase, driven by acquisition of Fintelite and sustained demand for risk, data, and compliance-oriented analytics solutions.

The ratings business also continued to see steady growth of 10.6% year-on-year, supported by improved credit activity and deeper market engagement. Consolidated PBT before exceptional items and tax stood at ₹72.8 crores.

For FY 2026, ICRA reported a strong all-round performance, with revenue increasing by 20.4% year-on-year. Rating segment continued its steady trajectory with 14.2% growth, while research and analytics delivered a sharper growth of 29.8%, supported by the consolidation of Fintelite and increasing traction in risk and compliance solutions.

As a result, PBT grew by 10%, reflecting the growth in revenues and improved, benefits from scale, while we continue to invest in talent, technology, and integration of the acquired businesses. For better comparability, the PBT reported above excludes one-time exceptional charges arising from implementation of the new labor code and so on.

Our rating segment continued to demonstrate margin expansion driven by steady revenue growth and improved operating leverage. In research and analytics, revenue growth was strong across key areas such as risk, regulatory, and data analytics solutions.

The knowledge services business, what we now call KnowTech, while stable across its core areas, saw some moderation in growth due to discontinuation of certain engagements and increasing automation trends. This has led to a shift in the overall business mix, with a higher contribution from non-KnowTech businesses, which structurally have a different margin profile, resulting in some moderation at the segment level.

We remain focused on scaling product-led offerings, driving efficiencies, and expanding our global footprint and client base to support margin improvement over time. Some of the key non-financial highlights: Last year marked a significant milestone as ICRA completed 35 years of operations, reflecting a longstanding track record of credibility, analytical rigor, and market relevance.

To commemorate this milestone, the board has recommended a dividend of ₹105 per share that includes ₹35 per share of special dividend, consistent with 35 years of our existence. This is subject to shareholders' approval.

During the year, we completed the acquisition of Fintelite and saw leadership transition in our analytics business, with Mr. Mruthyunjayappa taking over as CEO of ICRA Analytics and also as the head of our entire research and analytics vertical, which comprises three entities: ICRA Analytics, Fintelite, and D2K Technologies.

Mr. Mruthyunjayappa succeeds Mr.

Jayanta Chatterjee, whom we thank for his contributions. Jayanta retired in the month of January of 2026.

Alongside this, we have structurally realigned the research and analytics segment businesses into KnowTech, BankTech, and CapTech, supported by a unified IT and product engineering organization to enable scalable, technology-led growth. We continue to make steady progress on our AI roadmap, with focused initiatives aimed at enhancing operational efficiency and driving sustainable productivity gains across the organization.

We have begun deploying AI-powered agents in select processes, as well as integrating AI layer into analytical tools offered by our subsidiaries to strengthen our client value proposition. We expect AI to augment and sharpen our capabilities, while the deep domain knowledge and human expertise we have built over decades will remain at the core of our decision-making.

We were also pleased with the award given by the Institute of Company Secretaries of India during the year, recognizing our efforts in the area of CSR. Looking ahead, in terms of market outlook, with the ongoing West Asia conflict, India's GDP growth is estimated to have slowed down in the last quarter of FY 2026.

However, a large part of the adverse impact of the surge in global energy and commodity prices is expected to manifest itself in early FY 2027, which would weigh on GDP growth and macroeconomic outcomes. Given the uncertainty around the resolution of the conflict or the timing of it, elevated energy prices for an extended period of time will all pose a downside risk to growth, in the near term.

Besides, the potential development of El Niño conditions and weak monsoon forecasts for this year have dulled the agricultural outlook and rural prospects for the second half of this financial year. Assuming average crude price of $95 to a barrel, ICRA currently projects the GDP growth to moderate to 6.2% in real terms in FY 2027, and this translates to roughly about 12% in nominal terms.

In FY 2027, looking at the credit environment, credit markets are expected to remain somewhat dynamic, with bank credit likely to retain its competitive position over bond markets given current inflationary pressures and liquidity conditions. Higher hedging costs will make foreign currency borrowings relatively less attractive, further supporting domestic credit.

Overall, the environment remains evolving, with both opportunities and risks across different segments. Specifically on the research and analytics business, key regulatory developments, including Reserve Bank of India's transition expecting banks to transition to an expected credit loss framework effective 1st April 2027, along with evolving capital market regulations, are expected to sustain demand for risk modeling, data infrastructure, and compliance-oriented solutions.

The company continues to align its offerings with these trends. Our outlook remains anchored in structural drivers with increasing regulatory intensity and accelerated GenAI adoption reshaping client expectations.

We are focused on strengthening our position through deeper global engagement and continued enhancement of our portfolio. Ongoing investments in analytics platforms, compliance capabilities, and scalable delivery frameworks will support evolving market needs and drive long-term growth in the research and analytics business.

This is the update I have for all of you. Thank you very much, and I now hand over the call back to the operator.

Operator, over to you. Thank you.

Hi. Thanks for the opportunity.

I had three questions. One was on the ratings business.

In this quarter, we saw that the year-on-year growth was materially lower than peers. What was the reason for that?

Second is on the non-ratings side. I'm seeing that ex of Fintelite, growth is around 7% year-on-year.

If you can just break this down into how the different segments, the core segments within non-ratings has done. Third is related to capital allocation.

Is there any consideration around doing a buyback given that we have around ₹700 crores-plus of cash on the books?

Thanks for your questions. I'll take the first one.

My name is Shivakumar. I'm the Chief Business Officer for ICRA.

On the ratings business, I think your observation was that we were materially lower. No, actually, we see it this way that broadly, we are in the same band at a very broad level, at a similar band as several of our peers.

One needs to see we all have different base to contend with. If you see our own performance last four years, once again, it's broadly in a similar band of double-digit growth.

The way we see it is that our strategy of focusing on the growth segments, which is something we've been doing very consciously over the last four years, that has played out quite well. We've built quite a bit of strength and quite a bit of coverage in these growth segments.

We intend to continue with the same strategy. If we see last four years and if we see particularly this year, essentially it's a play between bank credit and the bonds, and depending on the interest rates, depending on the bond yields, which are again impacted not only by domestic drivers, but also geopolitical drivers, which we saw last year and we continue to see, the play is between these two segments.

We are well positioned in both, and our strategy would be to continue our focus on the growth segments. That's all from my side.

Hi, thanks for the question. This is Shailendra, CEO of the R&A business.

Your question was around growth rate within R&A for the second half of the year

excluding Fintelite.

Excluding Fintelite, we had muted growth within Knowledge Services, the outsourcing services business, which was the bulk of what we do within ICRA Analytics. Outside of that, the smaller what we used to call as the RMS business and Market Data businesses actually grew.

Although on a small base, they delivered growth and remained profitable. Fintelite obviously got added only towards the second half of the year.

All those numbers that you see reflect the Fintelite numbers, too.

Yeah. The third question was on the capital allocation.

I think the way we are looking at capital allocation is, if you look back for the last three years, we have consistently increased the dividend payout. Even for the current year, if you look at that, typically we used to pay ₹60 per share.

That we have increased to ₹70. I'm talking about the normal dividend.

Outside that, there was a special dividend as well, and we'll continue to see how we can actually improvise and keep on improvising this aspect. The second part, I think largely a question is, are there any alternate way of looking at capital allocation?

Yes, there are alternate ways, and we keep on continuing to look at those options, especially considering the fact that there has been some changes to the taxation rules. We will continue to evaluate that option as well.

As and when the board approves it, we will relook at the capital allocation further.

Sure, thanks.

Hi, good evening. Congratulations on stable performance.

I have a few questions. First, what will be the outlook on the ratings growth in the current year?

What has been the kind of borrowing activity in April-May, if you can throw some light? If this uncertainty lingers around for some more time, what kind of an impact it can have in the rating revenue growth, because I think the last two years, the rating revenues have grown by 14% at a very healthy clip?

Do you see it moderating because the start of the year has been weak? If you could also highlight, what is the base of surveillance fees, which will give us some growth, natural growth, and maybe will help us in understanding how much moderation can come in?

Sure. Rajiv, see, as far as the ratings business is concerned, obviously, similar to any other business, it is a leverage play on the economic activity.

Whilst, in the near term, we expect the bond market activity to be somewhat subdued given the spike in the yields, and which is probably expected to persist a little longer. At the same time, we expect actually bank credit to grow quite well.

Which is what I think will probably drive bulk of our growth at this point in time. In the first couple of months of this financial year, we have not seen any significant slowdown in the market or in, generally speaking, in our ratings business.

We're hoping that the same trends will actually continue. Are there some headwinds thanks to the geopolitical crisis?

The answer is yes. It hasn't yet manifested itself in any significant challenges which is beginning to cause us concern from a growth perspective.

Yeah. In the research and analytics segment, you've been trying to point out in your wordings also in the presentation and the press release that there could be margin shift because the revenue mix itself is shifting.

Can you give us some indications of margin at the business level? Because I think Fintelite is a 20% EBITDA margin roughly.

Then you also have D2K. If you can highlight the ballpark margins of D2K.

Then the Knowledge Services is not growing well, and the other businesses like BankTech and CapTech are growing better. This revenue mix shift within the research and analytics, where do you see eventual margin stabilizing?

How much of the margin give-up can happen because of the shift?

This is Shailendra again. I will not specifically guide you on any EBITDA margins, but I can broadly talk to directionally where we are headed.

See, at an industry level, BankTech type of businesses, which are product-led risk and regulatory solutions to the financial services industry, these kind of businesses deliver anywhere between 20% to 35% EBITDA margins, and we will also be pursuing on those lines. Now, why that broad range?

It's because different geographies have different margin profiles. Based on how we shift our revenue mix from India to outside of India and more specifically to the developed markets, that will determine how much of that we can achieve.

Broadly, this will be the margin profile of a product-led business.

The other one, CapTech and D2K? Some indication there?

Again, I'll not comment specifically on D2K. The way we have now organized ourselves, I don't know if you've seen the investor presentation.

We've organized ourselves into BankTech, CapTech, and KnowTech. BankTech consists of the erstwhile RMS business, which was the Risk Management Solutions—

Risk Management Solutions, okay, yeah.

—plus Fintelite and D2K. Now, as a combined division within R&A, BankTech, we are trying to move to a more consolidated, integrated organization, and we'll strive to achieve this at a combined level.

Okay. With regards to the synergies that we were supposed to extract from D2K acquisition, where are we in terms of those synergies already being extracted out in the last 1.5, 2 years since we've taken over?

Also, possibly please talk us through about the synergies through which Fintelite acquisition will also become beneficial for us, yeah. This is my last question.

Thanks.

Yeah. Although D2K acquisition happened a couple of years ago, the deeper integration has happened only recently.

Along with Fintelite coming on board, we are driving that. Integration is going as per plan.

We have now been able to put all our products together into a more combined product suite, realizing the benefits of carrying all of these products together, which are broadly complementary in nature, and with overlapping customers, which is now not only just expanding our footprint in India and the region, but we are also beginning to see this manifest in customers having multiple of our products. We believe this will start playing out over the next 2 years, where we strengthen our customer relationships and expand the solution offerings within each of those customers, especially the large ones.

Hi, sir. Good evening.

I just have a couple of questions. First is on the ratings side.

With ratings growing in double digits in FY 2027 and operating leverage at play, is it realistic to assume for the margins to go above 40% in the coming years? Second is on the non-ratings, Moody's part of the business.

Are we seeing further insourcing of projects by the parent or that has stabilized, and what sort of growth or project visibility you have for the next couple of years?

Yeah. On the first question, when we talk about ratings, whether there will be a swing in the margins, generally speaking, ratings business, if they grow double-digit, We don't give a guidance of margin, but what we have seen in the past even with ICRA or other industry is if typically people grow in double-digit, there is some addition which happens to the margin.

If you go back and look back, you will figure out that whatever those companies which have done a double-digit, there's some amount of leverage that kicks in. There's no doubt about it, because generally, the employee costs are sub-10%, the merit increase.

Typically speaking, if a well-invested technology company, it should give you some kind of a pass-through in terms of margins. On the second question, can you just repeat on the second question?

Sure. My second question was with respect to non-ratings, Moody's part of business.

Are we seeing further insourcing of projects by the parent or that has stabilized, and what sort of visibility in terms of new project wins for that Knowledge Service part of the business we have for the next couple of years?

On the Moody's side, I think you would have seen the last couple of years, the growth has been muted. We think, going forward also, we will see some kind of a moderation in growth.

It'll be muted. We don't expect a higher double-digit growth there.

As regards the insourcing from parent is concerned, they keep on automating the processes on an ongoing basis, and certain amount of insourcing happens periodically. There's no specific information that we have, but based on our past experience, some amount of insourcing happens, they keep on giving us the project work.

This keeps on happening on an ongoing basis.

Got it. Thanks, sir.

If I have further questions, I'll come back in the queue.

Sure.

Sir, can you call out the organic growth in the research analytics business for FY 2026? See,

I think Shailendra did cover that earlier. We don't give a separate growth between organic and inorganic.

That's how the disclosures are made. Having said that, the overall growth, as mentioned in our PR, is driven by the acquisition of Fintelite.

We had also clarified in the same PR that the biggest business in the research and analytics, which is the Knowledge Services, we continue to see a moderate growth there. Bulk of the growth that we are saying has come from Fintelite acquisition.

Okay. What would be your outlook for growth for the coming years and in conjunction with the aspiration of making research as 50% of the company level revenue?

Again, we don't give a outlook for the revenue growth. Having said that, I think the acquisition of Fintelite gives us a very good platform.

As Shailendra did explain, there's a lot of consolidation which happens. We are also trying to work on different geographies.

We expect that the acquisition of Fintelite will drive growth in the next 2 to 3 years. We can't quantify the growth, but the growth will be reasonable, and it will also try to offset some of the moderation that is happening in the Knowledge Services.

Okay. Since which quarter Fintelite was consolidated?

I think from October 1st, we have started consolidating Fintelite. Six months.

Half-year basically.

Yeah.

Thank you, sir.

Just to elaborate further on what Venkat just said. In FY 2026, even if you were to exclude Fintelite, if you look at the other businesses that were existing prior to October of 2025, the Knowledge Services business saw modest growth.

The other two businesses, basically Risk Management and Market Data, the two large verticals that are part of ICRA Analytics, both of them saw pretty healthy growth. At an aggregate level, even if one were to exclude Fintelite, the rest of the operations did actually deliver growth over the previous year.

Sir.

Hi, good evening, everyone. I hope I'm audible.

My first question was on the ratings business. While you did mention that double-digit revenue growth would imply margin improvement, what is your assessment of the current margin gap between ICRA and the other players?

See,

from a current margin perspective, I'm sure there are three players that you're talking about: CRISIL as well as CARE. I think each one works with a different set of clients.

We do recognize the fact that there is an amount of margin difference between us and the other two CRAs, and our intent is obviously to cover some of those as we ramp up our sales. The way we are positioned here is we have worked a lot on the sales side of it.

If we continue the way we have done in the last three years, especially if you have seen our margin trajectory, the growth has been quite reasonable in the last 3 to 4 years. I think it has been quite good.

We are able to catch up a lot of things. If we continue with the same good work, I'm sure we will continue to do well.

Hey, can you hear me?

Yes, Abhijeet. Go ahead.

Hey, sorry. My second question was on the Knowledge Services business, sir.

Historically, this business did enjoy pretty healthy margins. Now that the growth has started to slow down, does it also spiral into margin decline as well into the next 2 to 3 years?

See,

I would rather look at differently. I think the focus for us as a management has been to largely grow the non-KS part of the analytics, which has got a different margin profile from the KS business.

Just to be clarify that there is going to be some moderation, which we have hinted, but we don't have very specific information in terms of what kind of moderation. Normally, we're assuming there would be some moderation.

Having said that, our focus, I think, in the last one or two years has been always to focus on the non-KS business. I think we had multiple conversations, Abhijeet, if you recollect.

There the margin profile will be different. The intent for us is to grow on an absolute EBITDA terms, but there, as we have clarified in our press release also, there's going to be a shift in the margin profile.

Because, as—

Got it, sir.

—yeah.

Sir, in the non-KS business, sir, given that the current reported numbers are kind of impacted a little bit, how should we think about the steady-state margins?

Sorry, which business? Non—

Non-KS,

yes. Yeah.

Sorry, again, come back on the question again. Non-KS business?

Sir,

non-KS business, how should we think about the steady-state margins, over the next couple of years once we kind of have a stabilization of the numbers?

We don't give a very specific margin guidance, and I think if you recollect, Shailendra earlier had said that a kind of business that we are in on the product side, a 20% to 25% EBITDA is, I think, what he spoke. That is something which generally what the industry does.

We don't give a guidance, but we have touched base on what the industry generally looks at these numbers, and I'm sure we will also try to see how we can actually work around that.

Got it, sir. Thank you so much.

Thank you for the opportunity. My question is just on the non-ratings business.

You've done few acquisitions in the last few years, and as you are trying to sort of build a business beyond the non-Knowledge Services business, is your product portfolio largely complete, or is there more to be added with respect to build a bigger business over here?

Shailendra. Shailendra, yeah.

Shailendra here. Let me take this.

Like you've seen in the investor presentation, we've kind of now organized ourselves as a banking division and a capital markets division. Within the banking division, we are primarily serving the credit value stream and data value stream.

In those value streams, any analytical or data requirements is what we're trying to build out. From a product portfolio completeness standpoint, we're pretty much there.

There are a few gaps that we are trying to bridge by building internally, and that kind of completes what we want to be doing. We'll continue to explore adjacencies beyond these two value streams, which will be obviously new areas for us to grow.

Within capital markets, we have a pretty good offering covering all the asset managers and newer segments within the capital markets that we are pursuing. Again, there are opportunities for us, driven both by some of the regulatory tightening and requirements that are coming through, as well as some new greenfield opportunities that we are spotting.

We will continue to make investments there.

This is basically largely investments which you have to do from internal expansions rather than making acquisitions to fuel your growth. Is that a fair statement?

In our existing product sets, yes. Where we are, we are comfortable where we are.

We have the right set of products. We do have to evolve those products with the advent of AI and the new evolution that we have to go through for the products, the next iteration of those products, that we will continue to do.

By and large, in the spaces that we operate or the product portfolios that we have, we are complete with the exception of those new regulatory changes that are driving additional requirements. Like I said, we will be looking at adjacent spaces, which are new areas, and we'll explore all opportunities that

we have. Great.

Just as a feedback, it was alluded in the previous questions also, we would be having more than ₹700 crores of net cash, and given our product portfolio is fairly comprehensive now on the non-ratings business, our business is not capital-intensive. We will be generating ₹180 to ₹200 crores of cash flow again this year.

Our cash balance will further go up. Just as a feedback would be to rethink on ways to actually give money back to the shareholders if there are no opportunities to invest back in the business.

Point taken, Gokul. Yeah.

Great. Thank you.

Hi. Thanks for taking my question.

A couple of questions. One is for Shailendra.

I think we've been shareholders for ICRA for a very long period of time, and Fintelite is a completely new thing for a rating company in that sense, right? If you could share some real-life use cases as to what does Fintelite actually do for the end customer, right?

Right now, most of the things that are spoken on the call or put out in the annual report are like Greek and Latin for a layman, right? When we analyze rating business, we know what the rating business does, right?

If you had to explain it to really a layperson, how would you explain what does it do and what is the addressable market for a company like ours which gives us confidence that we will grow over a period of time, right? Are we a tech company with some research, or are we a research company with some tech, right?

We have absolutely no idea. If you could just share some insights, it'll be very, very useful for us to kind of understand and appreciate.

Sure. In summary, Fintelite is a risktech/regtech company, right?

I'll try to elaborate on that. Financial institutions, whether they are banks, insurers, asset managers, etc., they have a need to meet variety of regulatory requirements.

One is on the reporting side, which means they have to get all of their data, transaction data, analytical data, into what is called as a regulatory data repository or risk data repository, do the necessary calculations that the regulators expect, structure, format that data, and feed it into the regulator's system, either it is in files or data extractions, APIs, and a variety of other formats. This is used by the regulators for a variety of reasons, including supervision, macros, and so on and so forth.

That is one part of the business, right? Organizing the data, the risk and regulatory data, helping financial institutions meet with the external reporting requirements as well as certain internal regulatory use cases.

The second set of solutions comes from credit-related requirements. There are analytical needs for a financial institution or a lender to be able to analyze, do decisions around credit, around monitoring of credit at a portfolio level, at an individual level, whether it is spotting early warning signals, whether it is monitoring for non-performing loans, whether it is scoring, classifying those, and accounting for those either as incurred loss method or the now expected credit loss method.

All of these analytical solutions are the other set of solutions that we have. Broadly, in summary, this falls into the category of risktech and regtech.

Okay. When we look at, let's say, someone like Oracle Financial Services or a Finacle from Infosys or a Intellect Design, who provide core banking solutions to the banks, right, and who provide risk analytics also, this is something that they can also do or they may already be doing, right?

In that sense, how does Fintelite stand out vis-a-vis other software companies, core banking software companies or banking-related domain specific software companies? How is there a difference between the two?

If yes, can you just share or kind of help us understand where does Fintelite stand out?

Yeah. See, the systems that you're talking about, Finacle from Infosys or any other core banking system for that matter, they all sit within the transaction plane, right?

Transaction plane is systems that are capturing transactions, they are systems of record, they're keeping record of the transactions as well as balances and so on. Our type of solution is more on the analytical plane.

It is consuming data from all of these upstream systems. It could be a treasury system.

It could be a core banking system. It could be a card processing system.

It could be an internet banking system and several others that typically exist in a bank or a lender. We consume all of the data, structure and store it in a way that risk and regulatory use cases can consume it, and then we build those risk and regulatory use cases on top of it.

Right.

Right?

We don't directly compete with the core banking vendors. In fact, in some cases, we plug on top of them.

In some cases, we collaborate with them. Our type of solution, the need for it stems from regulators coming with new requirements or changing the existing requirements, and financial institutions maturing enough that they want to invest and automate some of the risk and regulatory use cases.

These are typically reasons why somebody would come and talk to us and consume products and services.

Right. How should we kind of look at the addressable market or the growth opportunities for us in the sense where our revenues today versus what it can be potentially if all the things work well for us and we execute really, really well?

What kind of business scale can we achieve or what kind of a business scale does the end market actually offer us for us to kind of scale up, right?

I'll respond to that slightly differently. Every single regulated entity within the BFSI space will need solutions like ours.

How much they will spend on solutions like that is based on their scale and complexity, and second is on the regulatory push in terms of how much automation the regulators want to see from these regulated entities. Obviously, we see much more higher levels of spending from the larger banks and financial institutions, and the adoption levels are much, much lower within the smaller banks or the NBFCs and smaller entities.

As the supervisors will start looking at the next tier and go down the chain, all of them will come under the pressure to start automating and being able to meet with the regulatory expectations. Our total addressable market is every single lender or regulated entity that is there within the banking space.

We typically sell them one-time licenses, or this is an annual fee product that we kind of sell to them?

Our preferred model is to have a annuity sort of a structure, but not every financial institution is ready to consume like that. Many of them also procure based on their more conventional buying ways, which is to say, give me an upfront license and a smaller recurring fees.

We're

making concerted effort to shift towards a more of a recurring subscription model, and obviously, we will get there as the market matures to that standard.

Okay. Thanks, Shailendra.

One question for Venkat and Ram. In the sense, I think is a common question across most of the con-calls that we've had in the past, right, on capital allocation, right?

If you could kind of also help us understand or kind of renew our expectations in our minds when we look at acquisitions that we do, what kind of IRRs do we expect or what kind of payback periods do we expect when we make acquisitions, right? Let's say cash IRRs, right?

For example, if we spend $25 million on Fintelite acquisitions or prior to that D2K, right? Typically is there a benchmark IRR that we have, or if yes, can you share that with us?

How is it better than kind of not holding excessive cash on the balance sheet or sending it back to the shareholders? If you could just share the difference between the two, that will be helpful for us to kind of also understand and appreciate.

I think I will take that on this. See, from an acquisition, we have a standard framework that we have internally, which we have not actually externally published.

This is an internal, which goes through a fair amount of discussion internally, including the IRR. We have a benchmark, and typically there is a payback period also defined very much there, which forms a part of the framework, and we generally stick to that.

Obviously, and we also have to be mindful that being a listed entity, there are reporting norms, and we also have a detailed framework, and we actually take it to the board. That way, I think what we are trying to say is that this follows through a structured framework, which is approved, and we actually align to that.

Obviously, there would be plus or minus few things that we will have to take a call, but broadly, we are guided by that framework in terms of both payback as well as the IRR. Right.

Venkat, if you don't disclose it to your shareholders, how do we know whether you have failed or passed in that acquisition or How do we assess whether it has actually worked or it has not worked, right? Is this not a disconnect between the two, right?

No, no. See,

there are two parts to this, right? One, we have a framework.

Naturally, we'll look at the payback period. We'll look at IRR.

Most importantly, we first look at the synergies that the opportunity might bring or the adjacencies that the opportunity might bring to our stable. That's the first filter.

Apart from that, we look at IRR, payback, all the structure, management, and all the rest of it, etc. Once that is done, naturally, as we are a board-governed entity, we take the proposal to the board, and the board evaluates all of this and then either gives us the approval to go ahead with the transaction or otherwise.

Once the contours of the transaction are approved by the board, the board periodically reviews them to see what we promised to deliver is consistent with actually what is being delivered, and that will go on till the time that the integration is actually completed. It is not as though it goes completely unsupervised.

We don't put it out in the public domain, but internally does the board actually look at it, do they review it periodically to see whether the milestones are actually being met and whether what was actually promised or what we expected to deliver is consistent with what is actually being delivered, the answer is yes.

Right, right. Still, like there is anyway, like, I think if it's already like there is an internal benchmark from the board point of view.

I'm just thinking like, when I look at Moody's presentations in the US or S&P's presentations in the US, right, I think there, at least, there is always a communication that this is what our benchmarks are, right? Whether we meet or not, is a different, that's a that's a out outcome, right?

The process is also kind of shared to a limited extent, right, to whatever possible. If you don't share the process and the outcome, shareholders will always be in the dark, right?

We don't even know how much scale-up have happened since the since the acquisition, whether the ROEs were met, whether the ROCEs were met, the paybacks were met. For us, it will Once it is all a merged entity, there is absolutely like a black hole, right, to it.

We have to basically just look at the numbers and assume that, whether it has happened or not happened, right? Disclosure or from a shareholder-friendly point of view, I think it might make sense.

Maybe take it as a feedback as a board as to, how how should we kind of communicate with the shareholders as to whether we have done justice to the money that we have spent on acquisitions over a long period of time, and is there a tracking method that we can share with the shareholders? That's all I had.

Thank you so much.

Thanks.

Hi. Just a couple of things.

One is I was looking at page 9 of your presentation. The organic growth was muted for the research and analytics business.

What was the rough segment profit contribution of Fintelite?

We don't give any specific Fintelite contribution—

You will have to disclose it in any case as part of annual report, right? Because this is like an acquired business.

—till the time we disclose for everyone, we have to maintain that parity.

Come again?

Till the time we disclose for all the shareholders, we'll have to maintain that parity. Right now, it is not in the public domain.

Okay. This would be a public call, right?

Anyway, it's okay. The second thing is when we look at growth, we should be— Although,

Nishant, I think we have given a note on the Fintelite, especially in the notes to accounts, where we have said I think around 26% or 26% is the EBITDA for Fintelite. That note we have put it in—

Understand. Understand.

Got it. The second one is in terms of just understanding the growth on a steady-state basis, right, after we exclude the impact of labor code, basically there is a zip code of 20% growth.

That's the order of magnitude we should be looking at, right, in terms of the delivered growth for FY 2026?

Sorry, how much you mentioned?

20% is the order of magnitude that I got.

Yes. You are right.

Roughly, it will be in that range. You're talking about the segmental or you're talking about the overall PBT?

Essentially segmental. The way I was thinking about it is that the segmental profit that you disclosed on page 9 is the core operating EBIT excluding the impact of interest income.

Yeah.

That seemed to be in the zip code of 20%. That's the right order of magnitude, right?

Closer to that, actually. It will be slightly lower than that, especially you're talking about research and analytics, right?

Overall, both put together.

Yeah. Yeah.

It will be closer to 20%, 21% if we exclude the amortization as well, investment amortization.

Got it. Okay.

Then what is the total dollar-denominated business that we have on the top line?

Dollar would be roughly around in the range of around Just give me 1 second, I think.

Sure. Yeah.

Are you asking specifically within the R&A business?

No, overall. Let's say, if I look at the ₹600 crores of top line that you have for FY 2026, how much of that would be denominated in dollars?

Roughly about $18 million US. Roughly.

18 million US, okay. That's about a third roughly, or maybe a shade below a third.

Okay. Understand.

The currency impact doesn't have a full flow-through in Q4, is it?

It has, no? See, what—

I'm just trying to understand how much of the growth was because of currency versus so

There will be a flow-through of the currency, actually. Roughly, 1/4 of that, if you take and compare it with last, there will be some growth on account of currency.

Typically, what we do is we don't recommend or say that you look at only the quarter, because what also happens in the quarter is there's some true-up which happens for incentives and so it keeps on happening. If you look at the previous quarter, there was a impact of the labor code and all.

Rather than that,

we would rather want it to be in a half-year or full year to extent possible.

Understand. Of the costs, are there, let's say, significant dollar-denominated costs, like let's say product licenses or nothing?

Not significant. Not significant.

Okay.

Okay. Understand.

Basically the way I should think about it is that about $18 million is effectively dollar-denominated revenue and rupee-denominated costs.

Yeah. Roughly.

Bulk of it would be. There'll be some odd, but bulk of it.

No, but

predominantly. I'm just trying to get a sense of order of magnitude.

Okay. Understand.

Okay. Just one last question with respect to Fintelite.

Who would be the competitor for us in this business?

Let me take that. Shailendra here.

Yeah.

Globally, a couple of names I'll give you: Regnology and Nasdaq Technologies. These are again, private equity/public company-backed entities that have grown through a lot of acquisitions over the last few years.

They are the ones that we typically find in the large global banks or internationally when we chase opportunities. We also see a different kind of competition.

There are a lot of the system integrators that will be there who will be pitching for more bespoke builds of customized solutions around these. From a product standpoint, these are the larger global players.

There were many more which have now gotten consolidated into these two through a series of acquisitions that have happened over the last 24 months. Within India, we come across the usual suspects.

Some of the other CRAs have equivalent risk and reg solutions, and there are smaller entities that have one or two of the solutions that we also have within our larger portfolio.

Understand. Effectively the way to think about this business is that you have data provided by the lender or the regulated entity, and then you sort of organize that data and provide access mechanisms to the regulator or to the regulatory engagement team in that bank or with the regulator, effectively like a streamlined pipe for them to access and sort of view the compliance track of the company.

Is that the way to think about the machine here?

I'll add a couple of more layers to that. What you said is right.

That is one part of what we do. Also think of the regulatory rules, regulatory templates, regulatory calculations that are required to be done, including any underlying models that are required to be able to achieve that.

Those are all part of the solution. We also constantly have to make sure that the product continues to meet the regulatory frameworks and regulatory requirements as prescribed by the respective jurisdictional regulators.

That's part of what customers pay for.

Understand. Today, it is only credit institutions, or you also do insurance?

We do. It is all types of financial institutions.

Obviously, a high concentration within the lending universe, but we are trying to foray into some of the other adjacent areas for us.

Got it. Thank you.

I don't have any further questions. Thanks for taking my questions.

Yeah.

Yeah. Thank you so much for explaining the product of Fintelite.

Just wanted to understand, do we foresee any risks from the AI or GenAI on the regulatory reporting side? Because what I understand is we take certain data, structure it as per what regulation requires, and then pass it on to the regulator.

Can AI, some AI model, do this?

AI will threaten every aspect of the technology world and every workflow within any enterprise. Honestly, this is the place which will be far touched, because of the regulatory complexities that is involved and the fact that the level of accuracy required, the level of SME expertise that is required to interpret the regulations and construct those regulatory submissions and any calculations that is quite high.

An external provider who brings this expertise doing it for financial institution, I think they also rely upon that aspect. Is there a possibility that some parts of this will get automated or threatened by AI?

Yes, there is always that possibility. You can never rule that out.

By and large, this space will continue to exist, and I believe, going forward, be very, very relevant for regulated entities to rely on external vendors like us.

Thanks a lot.