Future Forward: Ashish Rai, CEO, Aurionpro shares the company’s Strategic Growth Gameplan

In an exclusive interview with Express Computer, Ashish Rai, Chief Executive Officer at Aurionpro Solutions, delves into the company’s outstanding financial performance and strategic growth initiatives. Ashish Rai sheds light on the specific factors behind Aurionpro’s impressive revenue and profit growth during H1FY24 and explores the four major growth bets guiding the company’s success.

Some edited excerpts:

Can you elaborate on the factors contributing to the 37% increase in revenue and 34% increase in PAT during H1FY24?
We attribute our robust financial performance to our specialization in global products and platforms. The demand for our banking and transit solutions, coupled with our India-centric platforms and services, has been strong. This growth trend is not limited to H1; we’ve sustained a 30%+ growth rate for three consecutive years. The momentum in our business, evident in pipeline strength, order books, and market recognition, underpins our continuous growth.

Please provide insights into the four major growth bets outlined in your results commentary and how does each bet contribute to your growth strategy?
We are focusing on four major growth engines as we chart our course into the future. The first bet centers around the transformation of corporate banking, particularly in lending and Transaction Banking. There is a substantial demand from banks to drive technological transformation, with significant early investments in our newly launched corporate digital banking product. On the lending side, we see a strong demand for transforming loan origination processes, driven by both digital transformation needs and the robust performance of corporate loan books. With the world transitioning into a higher interest rate environment, there is a profitable demand from large banks, particularly tier 1 banks that we serve, for innovative technology in corporate lending. This constitutes our first bet, with a strong demand anticipated in the coming years. We boast a robust set of offerings, particularly in lending, with three flagship products: corporate loan origination, collateral management, and limit management.

Our second major bet revolves around transit. We anticipate a significant transformation in payment systems for transit over the next decade, moving from traditional closed loop systems to open loop systems. We have developed a comprehensive end-to-end offering stack in the transit payment space, particularly excelling in cutting-edge open loop payments. Our recent success in California is a testament to our prowess, and we are expanding our footprint into Central America, Latin America, Australia, with continued success in India. The transit sector is experiencing a surge in demand, especially in emerging markets, as operators transition from minimal technology to open loop systems.

The third bet focuses on the digitization of India, where we offer specialized platform services in the cloud services-based data center space. Our highly skilled data center design team manages prestigious projects and collaborates with strategic partners like WebWorks. This segment of our business is experiencing robust growth, driven by the increasing investments in data centers and cloud infrastructure. The demand in this space surpasses the available supply, indicating a thriving market.

Our fourth bet, a relatively new venture, involves licensing our technology and co-creating solutions with global technology majors. We have announced joint value propositions with leading FinTech vendors for offerings launched in Europe, the US, and Asia. Early successes, such as our collaboration with Finastra and MasterCard on the transit side, indicate the potential of this bet. While still in its early stages, our global ISP relationships and technology collaborations are poised to be significant growth drivers over the next four, five, or six years as we introduce more propositions to the market.

Please share some details on your acquisition strategy?
We have carefully selected our segments and the approach we are taking. The Aurionpro way of approaching these segments is to first identify the entire value chain in each segment. We prioritize understanding how the client is buying and examine the complete value chain. Subsequently, we aim to occupy most, if not all, points on the value chain through our offerings. Our strategy involves creating tier 1 assets that fulfill every point on the value chain, allowing us to become the most cost-efficient producer at each of these points.
For us, this is the method of extracting value from the propositions we bring to the market. Acquisitions, in our case, are not primarily for revenue; rather, they are intended to enhance our offering at a specific point on the value chain or to complement existing offerings. We have undertaken several acquisitions for this purpose, including SC Soft in Singapore to bolster the transit side and Toshi Automatic in India.

This year, our acquisitions include Interact DX, introducing a cutting-edge Customer Experience Management stack for our banking and insurance clients. It not only strengthens our position in the insurance sector but also expands our offering footprint in the banking space. Another recent acquisition is Omnifin, a state-of-the-art front-to-back loan management system. While we have excelled in the corporate loan origination space, particularly in Southeast Asia, working with major banks in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines, our goal with Omnifin is to broaden our presence in the complete Loan Management System space, specifically for retail SME loans. Omnifin, with its new, open architecture, boasts 40 plus clients in India, including well-known names in digital lending and the non-bank lending space. Our plan is to leverage our global clientele to take Omnifin global, fulfilling our solution aspiration. The collaboration with Omnifin aligns with our vision, creating substantial value for the business.

In essence, our acquisitions serve the purpose of enhancing our position on the value chain and strengthening our solution offerings. The value we create is a result of our scaled-out global channel and mature operating frameworks, enabling these businesses to scale on a global basis.

Where do you see the largest untapped opportunities?
Certainly, looking ahead over the next one or two years, the transit sector will continue to gain momentum. The shift from closed-loop technology to open-loop technology is unstoppable and is rapidly advancing globally. Aurionpro Solutions has established itself as a prominent player in this movement, and I expect this trend to persist, making it a key growth driver for our company.

Similarly, investments in data centers in India are escalating at a remarkable pace. This surge is attributed to the demand arising from digitization. There is also a considerable need for repurposing data centers to align with the ongoing AI wave. Consequently, we anticipate significant growth in this space over the next one to two years.

The third major area poised for growth is the lending sector. This is driven by both the existing demand in the market and our substantial solution footprint, particularly following the Omnifin acquisition. Additionally, the introduction of new products in the corporate loan origination space will contribute to the rapid growth of this sector for us over the next one to two years.