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Cashless India’s Biggest Beneficiaries

Online payment service providers are the real beneficiaries of Modi’s cash ban move.



Assorted credit and debit card machines sit at a payment counter at a Hindustan Petroleum Corp. gas station in New Delhi, India (Photographer: Prashanth Vishwanathan/Bloomberg)
Assorted credit and debit card machines sit at a payment counter at a Hindustan Petroleum Corp. gas station in New Delhi, India (Photographer: Prashanth Vishwanathan/Bloomberg)
Cashless India’s Biggest Beneficiaries

While the jury is still out on whether the demonetision of high-value currency notes was a hit or a miss, the exercise sent the stocks of cashless payment service providers rallying in trade.

Most digital payment software developers or point of sales machine manufacturers were down anywhere between 18 percent and 50 percent before the currency ban in November but ended up as the best performing stocks of 2016.

The biggest gainer last year – Intense Technologies Ltd. – which designs and develops software solutions, was already up close to 150 percent for the year up until November 8, and gained another 127 percent over the last two months of 2016. The stock ended 2016 with year-on-year gains of 330 percent.

Vedavaag System Ltd., a payment software maker, has doubled in value since November, and saw investors like Porinju Veliyath pick up around 1.5 lakh shares in block deals earlier this month, according to details available on the Bombay Stock Exchange.

TVS Electronics Ltd., which makes point of sales machines among other things, gained a little over 85 percent. The stock was down over 16 percent for the year, before demonetisation kicked in.

Other gainers include Saksoft Ltd., Tanla Solutions Ltd., Aurionpro Solutions Ltd. and RS Software India Ltd.