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Informist, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024

By Sagar Sen and Priyasmita Dutta

MUMBAI – Paying premiums for customers of PolicyBazaar could become easier in the next 12-18 months with the promoter company PB Fintech's proposed payment app designed with the sole purpose of making insurance payments. "PB Fintech has already sought the Reserve Bank of India's approval. The regulator takes some time to get back, but hoping to hear back in 12 months," a senior PolicyBazaar official said Thursday. After getting approval from the RBI, the app would be soon launched, the official added. 

"The idea is to have a dedicated payment gateway for the insurance space," the official told Informist. In March, PB Fintech had said in an exchange filing that a new subsidiary called PB Pay Pvt. Ltd. would "carry on the business of payment aggregator – domestic and / or cross border or both, as may be permitted by the RBI, by facilitating merchants with offline and/or digital payment acceptance infrastructure or both." 

Even though the idea was initially to have an app for all sorts of payments, a dedicated app for insurance premiums would be beneficial for PolicyBazaar customers, the official said. 

The paid-up share capital of the proposed company would be INR 270 million, the filing had earlier said. PolicyBazaar--an online insurance platform--provides over 50 insurance products with over 9 million customers buying insurance from it. On Thursday, shares of PB Fintech closed at INR 1,739 on the National Stock Exchange, up 4.6% from the previous close. 

For the quarter ended September, PolicyBazaar's promoter PB Fintech reported a consolidated net profit of INR 506.7 million as against a loss of INR 202.5 million in the year-ago period. In Apr-Jun, PB Fintech's net profit stood at INR 601.8 million. 

In the reporting quarter, PB Fintech's insurance premiums grew sharply, with total insurance premium at INR 54.50 billion, led by a 69% increase in the new health and life insurance business.  End

Edited by Akul Nishant Akhoury

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