PB Fintech stock soars 6% as subsidiary gets IRDAI nod to sell reinsurance products

Shares of PB Fintech Limited traded nearly 7 percent higher at Rs 993 on February 19 after the company announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Policybazaar Insurance Brokers, obtained approval from the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) to upgrade its license from a direct insurance broker to a composite insurance broker.

“This will allow us to deepen the insurance penetration in the country by bringing more technology, process control and data analytics based innovation into re-insurance capacity”, the company said in a regulatory filing on February 16.

At 9:35 am, the counter was trading at Rs 982, up 5.5 percent from the previous close on the NSE. In the last three months, the stock has gained 22 percent on the exchanges.

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In the October-December quarter, the company returned to the black for the first time after the Gurugram-based company reported a profit after tax of Rs 37 crore led by robust growth in insurance premiums, better renewals which have higher margins, and improvement in contributing margins. This signifies a substantial reversal from the Rs 87 crore loss recorded in the third quarter of the previous fiscal year (FY23).

Recently, global brokerage firm Jefferies initiated coverage on the company with a ‘buy’ call. “Large digital intermediaries offer superior play on Indian insurance and Policybazaar could gain market share from other channels,” Jefferies stated in the report. It added that Paisabazaar’s growth will moderate after the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) measures.

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