Choice International Ltd (NSE: CHOICEIN) Q3 2026 Earnings Call dated Feb. 04, 2026
Corporate Participants:
Vanessa Fernandes — Investor Relations
Arun Poddar — Executive Director & Chief Executive Officer
Ayush Sharma — Head of Investor Relations, Financial Controller
Manish Jain — Deputy Chief Executive Officer
Ankit Jain — Chief Product & Technology Officer
Manoj Singhania — Chief Financial Officer
Analysts:
Samruddhi Parolkar — Analyst
Nikita Mehta — Analyst
Neil John — Analyst
Rohan Shah, — Analyst
Shruti Sharma — Analyst
Mandira — Analyst
Urmish Shah — Analyst
Presentation:
operator
Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Choice International Limited Con call. The call will begin shortly. Ladies and gentlemen you are connected to Choice International Limited conference call. Please stay connected. The call will begin shortly. Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Q3 and nine months FY26 earnings conference call hosted by Choice International Limited. As a reminder, all participants line will be in listen only mode and there will be an opportunity for you to ask question after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during this conference call, please signal an operator by pressing Star then zero on your touchstone telephone.
I now hand over the conference to Ms. Vanessa Fernandez from AD Factors PR Investor Relations. Thank you. And over to you Ma’. Am.
Vanessa Fernandes — Investor Relations
Good evening everyone. On behalf of Choice International, I welcome you to the earnings conference call for quarter 3 and 9 month FY26. Joining us today from the management are Mr. Arun Podar, Group CEO, Mr. Manish Jain, Deputy CEO Ankit Jain, CPTO Mr. Manoj Singhania, CFO and Ayush Sharma, Head of Investor Relations. The earnings presentation has been uploaded on the exchanges as well as on the company website. You may refer to it as we walk you through the opening remarks and the discussion during the call. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that certain statements made during this call may be forward looking in nature and are subject to risks and uncertainties. These are detailed in the company’s annual report and other investor disclosures available on our website. Choice International does not undertake any obligation to publicly update these forward looking statements. With that, I will now hand the call over to Mr. Arun Podar to share his opening remarks. Thank you. And over to you sir.
Arun Poddar — Executive Director & Chief Executive Officer
Thank you. Good evening everyone. It’s pleasure to have you all with us today as we move through the final stage of approval. FY26. We are now witnessing a fundamental structural pivot in the India economy. Beyond the headline index, there is a clear equitization of household saving where capital is steadily migrating from physical assets into a financial market at unprecedented scale. This shift is not the cyclical, it’s a structural. While cooling inflation and the RBI strategic rate adjustment have ease the cost of capital, the real story for Choice continue to be the resilience of the rural and the semi urban consumer who is increasingly aspirational, financially aware and digitally enabled.
This structural shift is further reinforced by the Union Budget 2627 which has underscored financial discipline. While deepening India’s capital market ecosystem with sustained public capex, MSME formalization and market oriented reforms. The policy environment continue to support long term participation across equities, wealth, product and organized credit areas that are central to our strategy. Our performance this quarter is not just the result of favorable market condition but also reflect the steady progress we have made in building an integrated financial ecosystem and executing our strategy over the past few years. We closed nine month FY26 with the revenue of 831 crore and a PAT of rupees 170 crore, a standout achievement.
This quarter was the operational debut of Choice AMC with our first gold ETF marking an important milestone in our journey of building a full stake financial service platform. By integrating Aloza Consultant and expanding our wealth platform through the acquisition of wealth distributor businesses of end to end glory, we are moving from being a service provider to a holistic wealth architect for a rural India. With the India Post Payment Bank Partnership we are further strengthening our last mile reach by enabling digital investment access through one of the country’s most extensive distribution network. We are no longer just facilitating transactions, we are building the infrastructure for financial independence across India’s super saved and emerging market where access, trust and guidance matter as much as products.
Our operational focus remains on depth over breath and the philosophy of reflected across each of the business vertical in broking and distribution. As the industry adjust to regulatory changes in the derivative space, our focus on the cash delivery segment has helped maintain our margins and build a more stable long term investor base. The vertical accounted for 58% of total revenue during the nine month period with stockbroking clientele asset reaching 60,500 crore in Q3FY26 registering 22% YUI growth. Our wealth AUM expand rupees 4662 crore by 328 YUI supported by rising client engagement in delivery led and long term Investment products over 65,000 plus Choice business associates continue to be our trust bridge allowing us to maintain high touch relationship in a high tech world.
This network has supported the expansion of our demed base to 1234,000 accounts reflecting a 24% YUI increased driven by seamless capabilities, deeper penetration in Tier 2 and Tier 3 market and a diversified product offering. The insurance vertical delivered consistent growth added by the broader partner coverage and the higher adoption of digital journey. Premium collection stood at Rs.83 crore in FQ3.26 marking a 14% YoY growth with more than 50,000 policies sold. This reflect our ability to cross sell protection product within our ecosystem and deepen wallet share across our clientele base. Our MBFC segment continue to strengthen its focus on secured lending at a time when part of the unsecured lending market are under pressure are emphasized on msme Microlab and the Rooftop Solar.
The loan book reaches at 756 crore as of nine months. 26 with the NBFC business contributing 14% of total revenue, our in house collection mechanism remain a key differentiator utilizing Pre Digital Alert and the physical ground team to keep our asset quality strong. NNPA remains stable at 2.83% as of December 31.25 underscoring the prudence of our underwriting and the risk management framework, our advisory segment is benefiting from India’s massive infrastructure and governance push. With the order book of 748 crore, we are deeply embedded in the Mission project ranging from digital pacs computerization to World bank baked governance initiative.
The advisory business contributed 28% of total revenue providing revenue visibility for the next 24 to 36 months and adding stability to our earning profile. Our investment banking business remain execution led with 15 IPO completed so far, 37 active mandate and a tentative fundraising pipeline of 9,700 crore rupees reflecting strong market credibility and the deal flow momentum. Together these pillars underline our view that Choice is well positioned to participate in India’s growth by expanding access, building trust and supporting financial inclusion across a wide section of country. I will now hand over to Ayush Sharma, our Head of Investor relationship who will walk you through the financial performance of the quarter.
Ayush Sharma — Head of Investor Relations, Financial Controller
Thank you sir. I will now present our financial performance for Q3 and 9M. FY26 Choice delivered a consolidated revenue of Rupees 309 crore in Q3 FY26 reflecting 46% YoY growth. EBITDA stood at Rupees 117 crores with margin expanding to 37.92% reflecting our success in decoupling revenue growth from operational expenses. Pat for the quarter was rupees 66 crore rupees delivering a margin of 21.26% and a YoY growth of 114% for nine months FY26 revenue rose to 831 crores which is up by 25% on YoY basis. EBITDA reached rupees 303 crore rupees with EBITDA margins at 36.45% while profit after tax stood at 170 crore rupees with a 56% YoY growth.
These outcomes demonstrate the effectiveness of our execution and the robustness of our operating platform within our business segments. The broking and distribution vertical delivered Q3 revenue of 160 crores with a PBT of rupees 49 crores. The NBFC segment reported Q3 revenue of rupees 40 crores and PBT of rupees 4 crores. Asset quality in this segment remains stable. We maintained a healthy net interest margin of 12.25% even as we prioritize high quality secured portfolios. The advisory business recorded Q3 revenue of rupees 100 crores with a Pvt. Of rupees 38 crores. Driven by high quality execution and sustained momentum across sectors. A healthy order book and reliable delivery reinforce our role as trusted advisor across India. With that, I would now like to open the floor for question and answers.
Questions and Answers:
operator
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchstone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two participants are requested to use answers while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Samruddhi from DNS Capital. Please go ahead.
Samruddhi Parolkar
Congratulations on the good set of numbers. My question was regarding recent projects which you have posted on the press release about India Post Payments Bank. So can you give an update about it like potential revenue which you are expecting from this and margins and how many such projects are you looking for? Hello, Am I audible? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Am I, am I audible now? I mean audible now? Yes, you’re audible.
Ayush Sharma
Okay fine. Thank you. Thank you Samruti for the question. See this project is for integrating our wealth services with the India Post Payment Banks distribution network. Currently India Post itself has an. Has 1.6 lakhs Number of post offices, 1.8 lakhs Number of postmen who are delivering, you know, the services of IPP as well which includes saving bank accounts and current accounts to more than 12 crore customers. Now this project is to provide the wealth management services to these 12 crore customer existing as well as future customers of IPPB. This opens up a huge distribution channel for our business. So more than you know, the numbers and margins, it opens up an avenue for onboarding more and more customers which will be, you know, and this is, this is technically the largest distribution system across India. So we will utilize this, this partnership and grow more onto semi urban and rural geographies which will expand our reach to the end users. So that’s the outcome of this particular project which we foresee.
Samruddhi Parolkar
Okay. Okay, understood. And secondly, I had a Doubt about Gold etf. Like do you have any plans in that segment? Any timelines for active strategy?
Ayush Sharma
Okay, so I will request the Deputy CEO of AMC, Mr. Manish Jain to take up this question. Manish, over to you.
Manish Jain
Thank you. In terms of product portfolio, currently we have Gold etf. And next we would be going ahead with the index funds. And to supplement the flow in the index fund, we would be launching the overnight fund. That’s the plan for this fiscal year. In the next fiscal year, we will complement our basket on the commodity. So that’s where you will see that couple of commodity ETFs which are missing in the stack that will get added up. Once these two stacks are completed, we will get into the active strategy. So as an amc, we want to give a choice to our investors both on the passive side as well as on the active side. And on the passive side we want to cover equities as well as the commodities.
Samruddhi Parolkar
Okay, understood. Thank you. Thank you for taking my question.
operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Nikita Mehta, an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Nikita Mehta
Hi sir. Thank you for the opportunity. I have few questions, sir. First is what are the key drivers behind the 45% YoY revenue growth in this quarter? Particularly the contributions from Broking versus the NBFC and advisory segments.
Ayush Sharma
So, thank you, Nikita. The largest drivers are the increased trading activities from the retail investors which we have forced which we have seen during the quarter. As our fixed costs are stable and operating costs are not directly increasing. With the increase in the revenues, we are able to expand on the margins as well during this quarter across the Broking business. Similar expansion in the margins we have seen in the advisory business also which is largely driven by the same team executing multiple projects and which is resulting in a higher revenue being generated for the P and L.
So both these businesses have grown very well during this quarter as compared to the Q3 FY25. And this has led to a larger growth in the revenues as well as the expansion in margins. Moreover, Choice Broking has been one of the top five brokers which has seen a net client addition as per the NSE’s active UCC list over the last couple of quarters. So that has also contributed largely to our growth in the revenue as well as growth in the active clients.
Nikita Mehta
Okay. Okay. So that answers my question. And sir, I have one more question. EBITDA margins expanded to 37.9% in Q3FY26 from 29.2% y o I. Can you just elaborate on the sustainability of this expansion due to the rising employee costs.
Ayush Sharma
So on the EBITDA margin, what we foresee that as we grow the top line, the EBITDA margins are going to be sustained and even expand further. So we don’t foresee any major consent on, you know, sustaining this EBITDA margin per se. This is largely in sync with the growth of the overall revenue as the fixed cost and the operational costs are not increasing the rate which the revenue is growing. So we foresee EBITDA margins to continue, you know, above the current levels.
Nikita Mehta
Okay, okay. Okay. So that, that was really helpful and all the best for the future. Thank you.
operator
Thank you. Thank you. Before we take the next question, we would like to remind the participants that you may press star and one to ask a question. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Neil John from BNK Securities. Please go ahead.
Neil John
Hello sir. Thank you for the opportunity. There’s a couple of questions that I have. So one is on the active client front, as you said, we have seen a growth in active clients and even our market share has increased on a year on year basis. If you look at December numbers, it’s a marginal increase. So I want to know what your perspective is on future. How do we look to expand this market share? Secondly, also on the cost of acquisition of customers, how’s that moved on a year on year basis? Are you finding it more difficult now with the markets kind of being more volatile? How is that trend playing out? And my second question says on the MTF book side, I think I missed the performance for this quarter. How’s the book scaling, sir? And there have been some industry commentary around, you know, the risk on the MTF front. So if you have some commentary on that.
Ayush Sharma
Okay, thanks John for taking out time to join this call. Firstly, on your question on the active clients and market share. See we are in a, in a digital business model where we have physical presence on the ground and the whole execution is done using the technology. So our sourcing mechanism remains the, the physical channels which includes our branches as well as the AP network and our CBAs which we have. This is not adding more onto the, I mean so that setup is already there in place. And with this setup we believe that even today in the semi urban geographies or even tier 3 and below geographies, people require a physical presence of the, of the platform providers who, through whom the people are investing their hard earned money.
So that is the larger philosophy of behind having this particular business model. This model is the largest reason for having the net addition in the active clients over the last couple of quarters where the overall industry has seen in decline or you know the larger players have seen a decline in the active clients. So that’s going to remain intact and which is also helping us to keep the client acquisition cost stable. We don’t see a major rise in the client acquisition cost because of the fixed cost we are already anyways incurring and the more and more clients which we onboard our client equation cost remains stable.
On your question of the mtf, currently we are maintaining an average book of roughly around between 370 to 400 crore rupees. On the risk part we as choice broking we have placed robust internal risk management systems. We have not seen any sort of risk arising our customer base and on our platform our target is to grow the MTF book very aggressively over the over the next one financial year. So that’s the, that’s the target which we are taking on the MTF book. And from the risk perspective our systems are very robust and we don’t foresee any major challenge on the risk management side with injoice.
Neil John
Thank you sir, just one follow up. Would you able to quantify like what is the average exposure for your clients on the MTF front?
Ayush Sharma
Neil? Unfortunately I don’t have that number readily available with me. But we will try to include that number in our earnings presentation next time if feasible.
Neil John
Sure sir. Thank you so much. Thanks.
operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rohan Shah, an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Rohan Shah,
Hello. Hi sir, thank you for the opportunity. I had two questions. One is with regards to the CAGR which stands at 50.53 percentage with collection deficiency of 90 percentage. How will the management manage funding costs and liability mix to support 20 to 30 percentage AUM growth?
Ayush Sharma
Sorry, I missed the question. Can you please repeat the question again?
Rohan Shah,
Sure, sure. So I was just saying that the CAGR stands at 50.53 percentage and the efficiency is at 90 percentage. So how will you manage the funding cost and liability mix to support the 20 to 30 percentage AUM growth?
Ayush Sharma
Okay, so what you are on the KEGR which you are talking is on the overall consolidated revenue I think and that revenue is including the broking advisory and NBS businesses. So we are, we have been delivering, you know the, this. This growth rate over the last five years and we are very much confident about maintaining a similar range over the next couple of years as well with our current business plans. We are very well positioned to achieve the same numbers Specifically on the, on the NBFC side. Our AUM is largely contributing by the retail loans where we have the physical presence on the ground and do the physical credit underwriting using the technology, most advanced technology tools available as well. So that is, that will help us maintain our high collection efficiency, higher collection efficiency and lower, you know, the credit cost. With this, with the help of our existing physical presence itself, we are very sure that we will be able to achieve an AUM growth of 22 to 30% over the next couple of years.
Rohan Shah,
Great, great. And, and on the recent acquisition, how will it contribute to FY26 execution in infra consulting?
Ayush Sharma
Yeah, so on the, on the recent acquisition of Ioliza Consulting, they have been working, they have very good credentials of working with various governments. The larger largest reason was that there were certain geographies where they, where we were not having certain credentials which Ioliza has. And with the help of new credentials coming in, we will be able to expand onto the geographies where we get more contracts from more states which will be adding up on our order book and therefore adding increasing our overall revenue. So that’s the largest advantage which we foresee from the acquisition of Iolija Consulting.
Rohan Shah,
Okay, thank you. Thank you for that. All the best, sir. Thank you.
operator
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question please press star and 1. Now. Participants who wish to ask a question may please press star and one. Now the next question is from the line of Shruti Sharma from family office. Please go ahead.
Shruti Sharma
Yeah. Hi, good evening. Sir. Just a couple of questions from my side. First, could you share your plans around capex for FY26 like particularly on technology investments or branch expansion.
Ayush Sharma
Okay, so on the tech side, not major in the Capex perspective. However, OPEX is the only thing which we have largely on the tech side. And branch expansion is also not very significant since our average cost of each new branch is not very significant. It ranges somewhere between 300,000 to 500,000 rupees. So that’s not very significant in terms of capex. However, on the IT capex and opex, I would request our CFO Mr. Manoj Singhanya to throw some light on the numbers during this particular quarter.
Manoj Singhania
During the quarter, total expenses along with capex around 10cr for growth.
Ayush Sharma
Okay. Okay. So I hope that helps your question, Shruti.
Shruti Sharma
Yeah, yeah. Yes sir. And secondly, could you help us with any broad full year guidance on revenue growth and PAD growth that management is currently targeting?
Manoj Singhania
So we have been delivering double digit growth which has been upwards of, you know, 20, 25%. We expect to Maintain the similar growth rates over the next couple of years as well.
Shruti Sharma
Okay. Okay. That’s all from my side. So thank you. Thank you for the opportunity and all the best. Thank you.
operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Mandira and individual investor. Please go ahead.
Mandira
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. So I have couple of questions. With demand account at 1.3 million and ADT to market share steady at 1.2%. What strategy are in place to accelerate the client acquisition in tier 2 and tier 3 cities?
Ayush Sharma
Okay, so Mandira, as I mentioned largely the physical expansion of our branches and our CBA network is going to contribute more towards the customer acquisition. However, hopefully we have started building an digital client acquisition team as well. I would request Mr. Ankit Jain to throw some light on the digital client acquisition mechanism which we have in place. We have Mr. Ankit Jain, CPTO who will throw some light on this acquisition. Okay.
Ankit Jain
Hello everyone. Regarding the acquisition model we from last one or two years we have building the entire infrastructure which is helping us to get the user in a lower cac. Because in the world of retail the bigger pain is the CAC which need to be sustainable for the business. So from last year we are working on that. And right now we are seeing a good growth in that aspect. So basis of that we are planning a major growth in the digital world also. We are building the complete financial ecosystem for the end user. Where our entire theory and the thought process is to whomsoever client we are acquiring. We should have a ecosystem where we can create a higher LTV using the multiple product. We don’t want it to be like a simple stockbroking application. We want it to be a complete financial hub for the end user. Where the recent product addiction such as credit as well as the dedicated FNO section for the user are something which are in pipeline or something which we have delivered in this quarter. Where the thought is to how we can get the more LTV of the user.
Ayush Sharma
Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mandira. I hope answers your question.
Mandira
Secondly, insurance premium as. Can I go ahead?
Ayush Sharma
Yeah, yeah, please go ahead.
Mandira
So secondly insurance premium has hit around 835 million with 50.6k policies. What is the plan to sustain 58% revenue growth amid the POS expansion?
Ayush Sharma
So again Mandira, as I mentioned upward, I mean something north of 25% growth rate is something which we are targeting in the insurance distribution business as well. You would see in our earnings presentation that we are catering to both corporate as well as retail customers in the insurance distribution business which has which is going to continue, you know, expanding in both the segments and that will contribute to the growth rate of upwards of 25%.
Mandira
Got it, sir. Thank you. That was really helpful. Thank you, sir. Thanks.
operator
Thank you. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchstone telephone. Participants who wish to ask a question may press star and one at this time. The next question is from the line of Urmish Shah from Moneyvisor. Please go ahead.
Urmish Shah
Yeah, I had just one question. If I see your presentation on the slide of Choice Connect, I see the credit card issue has gone down by 6% and also the clients onboarded in this quarter has been a bit of a decline. So any reason could you give.
Ayush Sharma
Yeah, on the credit cards front we had certain technological hit glitch with the integration with one of the bank for which we have been working. That was for a brief period of around 40, 45 days which has led to the reduction in the number that. That glitch has been resolved now and which is we have seen an uptick in the. In the month of January. So we foresee that this number is going to remain stable, you know, in the, in the Q4. So we don’t foresee a major. So we think we expect this to be a temporary impact and not a sustained impact.
Urmish Shah
Okay. And on the onboarding of clients.
Ayush Sharma
Onboarding of clients. Yeah, yeah. So onboarding of clients of Choice Equity. Since we were gearing up for the contest of GFM period, the existing contests were withdrawn, which has led to slightly degrowth in the client onboarding as we have launched the JFM contest for the CBAs as well. This will also normalize, you know, during the Q4FY26.
Urmish Shah
Okay. Okay. Thank you, sir.
operator
Thank you. As there are no further questions from participants, I now hand over the conference to management for closing comments. Over to you, sir.
Arun Poddar
So, thank you. Thank you for insightful questions. Our journey in FY26 has been about scaling with discipline. Our focus remains on technological innovation and deepening our presence in India’s unserved market. On behalf of entire Choice team, I wish you all a prosperous new year ahead. Thank you.
operator
Thank you. On behalf of Choice International Ltd. That concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.