Pine Labs To Launch Infra For Stablecoin-Backed Prepaid Cards In Global Markets

Fintech major Pine Labs plans to soon launch infrastructure for stablecoin-backed prepaid cards in global markets. During the company’s Q4 earnings call today, CEO Ambrish Rau said that while India has a robust payments ecosystem owing to UPI, stablecoins hold relevance in the global markets due to their ability to handle quick transactions and remittances.

To leverage this opportunity, Pine Labs is working on building backend infrastructure for stablecoin-backed prepaid cards launched by banks and financial institutions that would allow for P2P and merchant payments along with bulk remittances, where Pine Labs will be able to earn on a per transaction basis.

Rau also emphasised the huge opportunity that “programmable money”, which allows for programming stablecoins in a way that they can only be used for certain transactions, offers.

“That is a very interesting space where you can actually define where the money goes and that programmability of money is what stablecoin is allowing you to solve for. We are actually fully ready with our infrastructure platform where on a stablecoin-based account or a stablecoin-based wallet, a prepaid card with a Visa or a Master logo can get delivered in global markets,” he said.

This comes after Pine Labs turned profitable in Q4 FY26, posting a net profit of ₹59.4 Cr as against a loss of ₹28.9 Cr in the year-ago quarter. Sequentially, profit grew 40% from ₹42.4 Cr. Operating revenue during the quarter grew 14.7% YoY to ₹700.5 Cr. However, it dipped 5.9% sequentially from ₹744.3 Cr.

Morgan Stanley gave the company’s shares a ‘maintain equal-weight’ or hold rating with a target price of ₹245, after its Q4 revenue growth missed consensus estimates by 3% and adjusted EBITDA was also reported slightly below estimates. However, the brokerage highlighted the strong growth of Pine Labs’ issuing and acquiring business, growth in gross transaction volume inflow, improvement in operating leverage and cash flow conversion in FY26.

At 12:45 IST, shares of Pine Labs were trading at ₹142.25 on the BSE, down 2.67% from the previous close. The company’s market capitalisation stood at ₹16,334 Cr (about $1.7 Bn) on the BSE.

International Opportunities & Headwinds

As per Rau, Pine Labs’ international business has been performing well despite headwinds from ongoing geopolitical tensions and business slowdown in West Asia.

However, some disruptions were faced by the fintech player in Q4, especially from factors like the slowing economy, geopolitical issues stemming from the West Asia war, the resultant slowdown in not just cross-border trade but the reluctance of banks and financial institutions to invest in payments systems. Pine Labs also highlighted ongoing chip shortages due to the growing need from AI applications, which resulted in a backlog of around 2 Lakh point-of-sale (PoS) machines getting stuck.

“I have to say that it’s all behind us right now. Everything on the supply chain is in place, we have enough to deliver in the market. There was clearly an impact that we saw when it came to decision making from some of these Middle Eastern banks and financial institutions,” Rau said.

He remained firm on the company’s revenue growth guidance of 21%-23.5% for FY27.

“We have incorporated the softness that we have seen when it comes to the Middle East markets, and also some of the softness that we saw on the airline part of the business,” Rau said, adding that the ongoing quarter (Q1) is usually the weakest on a full year basis and hence might see growth toward the lower end of the guidance, which is expected to improve in subsequent quarters.

The fintech player is doubling down on its presence in global markets, especially geographies like South East Asia, Africa and West Asia, where it claims to be competing and winning against global players. Rau noted that while US-based payments companies are focusing on their large domestic client base, Pine Labs is looking to service emerging markets like Vietnam, the Philippines, the UAE, among others.

New Initiatives For FY27

The company is also heavily leveraging AI, with agents now accounting for 89% of the code generated. Additionally, AI is allowing Pine Labs to create new revenue streams by charging merchants for consumer insights and data garnered using the technology.

Pine Labs announced that it has partnered with OpenAI to act as a design partner to co-develop AI products tailored for local markets by leveraging its tech stack and data. Moreover, the company is planning to unveil two new AI-powered products, focused on agentic commerce and payments, during the upcoming Mumbai Tech Week conference to be held on May 29 and 30.

“We are also seeing a very big opportunity come up when it comes to employee benefits. We will be launching an employee benefits programme over the next few weeks and quarters. We think this is going to be an opportunity where we will be able to address a large type of both consumers and corporates,” Rau added.

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