ASX-listed Findi installs over 1,000 ATMs in fast-growing India

Findi Limited (ASX:FND), an ASX-listed company most recently focused on its partnership with the Central Bank of India (CBI) to roll out Automatic Transaction Machines (ATMs) in the country, has on Monday clocked a serious milestone. 

Findi now operates over 1,000 ATMs in India, and it sees the total targeted number of 1,550 locations to be completed and online by late March, 2023.

The contract began back in March this year, when Findi was called ‘Vortiv.’ 

The work is done through Findi’s Indian subsidiary Transaction Solutions International (TSI) which secured a five-year contract with the CBI to roll out a total of 2,550 ATMs. 

TSI now fully owned by Findi

In February this year, one month before the CBI contract, Findi bought out the rest of TSI from a former JV partner. 

At the time, Findi noted the total amount of ATMs deliverable under the contract was some 70% higher than what Findi was expecting. 

Following full deployment, the company expects the rollout to earn up to $13m a year. 

Findi, in a summary of how the contract is coming along so far, provides the following details: 

• 1,000 ATMs are live and transacting 

  • ATMs in place are seeing 100+ transactions per day where they have been for over 90 days 

• 1,000 further sites approved by CBI with installation underway 

• 550 sties pending approval from CBI 

“Speed of deployment for CBI has accelerated, despite additional holidays in India through the second half of the year,” company chief Nicholas Smedley said. 

“We now look forward to advancing toward completion of our deployment in the upcoming March quarter.”

Central Bank not the only contract 

There’s the CBI, and then there’s the State Bank of India (SBI), with which Findi holds a similar contract, rolling out ATMs in India for that institution also. 

That contract runs into late 2023 and sees Findi tasked with installing 3,912 ATMs in India for the SBI. It expects this to generate up to an additional $10m in revenue each quarter, for as long as the contract is operational. 

Under the SBI contract, Findi is responsible for the supply, installation and maintenance of ATMs across major states: Odisha and Chhatisgarh, Rajasthan, Karnataka and Goa, Gujrat, Dadra and Nagar Haveli.

Jurisdictional considerations 

Findi claims Indian cash circulation has increased by 16% over the last five years on a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) basis. 

It also highlights non-metropolitan areas of India (a vast addressable market) use cash to execute up to 80% of eCommerce transactions. 

Consider the below: 

• India overtook the UK economy in March of this year to become the world’s 5th largest. 

• The UN says India’s population will overtake China’s in 2023, making it the new most highly populated country in the world. 

• And most eyebrow raising of all: the World Economic Forum predicts India’s economy to overtake the USA’s by as early as 2030. 

• OECD statistics from last year put that number higher, at 2048. 

• Per coverage in Forbes, however, Goldman Sachs doesn’t see it happening until the 2070s. 

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