PROTEAN eGOV

TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED

IPO NOTE
November 2023
ISSUE HIGHLIGHTS Issue Details
Offer for sale of 6,191,000 Equity Shares
❑ Protean eGov Technologies Limited (“Protean”) was originally incorporated as
“National Securities Depository Ltd” on December 27, 1995. As a depository,
Issue summary
Protean created a systemically important national infrastructure for capital
Issue size (Gross) : ₹ 466 - 490 Cr
market development in India.
No. of shares: 6,191,000 Equity Shares
❑ Protean is one of the key IT-enabled solution companies in India engaged in Face value: ₹ 10/-
conceptualizing, developing and executing nationally critical and population scale Employee Reservation: Upto 150,000 Shares
greenfield technology solutions. They collaborate with the government and have
extensive experience in creating digital public infrastructure and developing Price band: ₹ 752 - 792
innovative citizen-centric e-governance solutions. Bid Lot: 18 Shares and in multiple thereof
❑ Since inception and as of June 30, 2023, Protean has implemented and managed Employee Discount: ₹ 75/- per share
19 projects spread across 7 ministries and autonomous bodies ushering change Post Issue Implied Market Cap =
in public delivery of services. ₹ 3,042 – 3,203 Cr
❑ Protean has been instrumental in establishing public digital infrastructure and
creating e-governance interventions impacting multiple sectors of the Indian BRLMs: ICICI Securities, Equirus Capital, IIFL
economy. Some of their key interventions include: Securities, Nomura Financial Advisors
• Modernising the direct tax infrastructure in India through projects like Registrar: Link Intime India Pvt. Ltd.
Permanent Account Number (“PAN”) issuance, the Tax Information Network Issue opens on: Monday, 6th Nov’2023
(“TIN”) including Online Tax Accounting Systems (“OLTAS”). Issue closes on: Wednesday, 8th Nov’2023
• Strengthening the old age security system in the country by building the core
IT infrastructure as a Central Recordkeeping Agency (“CRA”) for the National Indicative Timetable
Pension System (“NPS”).
Activity On or about
• Enabling the universal social security system for all Indians, particularly the
Finalisation of Basis of Allotment 13-11-2022
workers in the unorganized sector by creating technology infrastructure as
Refunds/Unblocking ASBA Fund 15-11-2022
a CRA for the Atal Pension Yojana (“APY”).
Credit of equity shares to DP A/c 16-11-2022
• Contributing to the India Stack, a set of application programming interface
(“API”) that allows to utilise a unique digital infrastructure to prepare Trading commences 17-11-2022
solutions that are presence-less, paperless and enable cashless service Issue break-up
delivery.
₹ In Cr (Net) % of
• Improving accessibility to education and skill financing, discovery of financial
No. of Shares @Lower @Upper Issue
resources through platforms such as Vidya Lakshmi and Vidya Saarathi.
QIB 3,020,500 227.14 239.22 50%
• Contributing to and supporting open digital building blocks such as Open NIB 906,150 68.14 71.77 15%
Network for Digital Commerce (“ONDC”) for use-cases across sectors like e- -NIB2 604,100 45.43 47.84 -
commerce, mobility, healthcare, agriculture and education. -NIB1 302,050 22.71 23.92 -
❑ Their Shareholders include financial institutions such as NSE Investments Ltd, 360 RET 2,114,350 159.00 167.46 35%
ONE Special Opportunities Fund, SUUTI, Citicorp Finance India Ltd and certain Emp 150,000 10.16 10.76 -
public and private sector banks such as State Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, Total 6,191,000 464.44 489.20 100%
Union Bank of India, Bank of Baroda and Canara Bank, HDFC Bank Ltd, Axis Bank NIB-1=NII Bid between ₹ 2 to 10 Lakhs
NIB-2 =NII Bid Above ₹ 10 Lakhs
Ltd, Deutsche Bank A.G, The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Ltd,
Standard Chartered Bank, among others.
NII-Bid NII - Bid
Retail between ₹ Above ₹ 10
BRIEF FINANCIAL DETAILS* ( ₹ In Cr) Category Category 2 - 10 Lakhs Lakhs
Minimum Bid 18 270 1,278
As at Jun’ 30, As at Mar’ 31, Lot (Shares) Shares Shares Shares
2023(03) 2022(03) 2023(12) 2022(12) 2021(12) Minimum Bid
₹ 14,256^ ₹ 2,13,840^ ₹ 10,12,176^
Equity Share Capital 40.42 40.38 40.42 40.38 40.14 Lot Amount (₹)
Reserves 847.87 771.57 816.72 747.81 627.51 117,464 1,119 2,237
Appl for 1x
Net worth as stated 888.10 811.77 856.94 788.00 667.46 Applications Applications Applications
Revenue from Operations 220.40 156.75 742.21 690.91 603.13 Listing: BSE
Revenue Growth (%) 40.61% - 7.42% 14.55% - Shareholding (No. of Shares)
Adj EBITDA as stated 34.09 21.68 117.96 123.83 84.85
Pre-Offer and Post-Offer
Adj EBITDA (%) as stated 15.47% 13.83% 15.89% 17.92% 14.07% Equity Shares
Profit Before Tax 41.72 27.16 140.42 185.62 116.00
No of shares 40,446,732
Net Profit for the period 32.21 21.27 107.04 143.94 92.19
Net Profit (%) as stated 14.61% 13.57% 14.42% 20.83% 15.28% Shareholding (%)
EPS – Basic (₹) 7.97^ 5.27^ 26.50 35.78 23.02 Pre- Post-
EPS – Diluted (₹) 7.96^ 5.26^ 26.48 35.75 23.00 Issue Issue
Promoter & Promoter Group 0.00% 0.00%
NAV (₹) 219.71 201.01 212.00 195.13 166.29 Public – Selling Shareholders 74.58% 59.27%
ROE (%) 3.63%^ 2.62%^ 12.49% 18.27% 13.81% Public –Other 25.42% 40.73%
ROCE (%) 4.60%^ 3.9%^ 16.13% 22.91% 16.93% Total 100.00% 100.00%
Source: RHP, *Restated Consolidated, ^ not annualised,

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BACKGROUND
Company and Directors
The company was originally incorporated as ‘National Securities Depository Limited’ on December 27, 1995. The company is
a professionally managed company and does not have any identifiable promoter in terms of the SEBI ICDR Regulations and
the Companies Act.

Currently, NSE Investments Ltd (“NSEIL”) holds 24.77% of the paid-up pre-Offer Equity Share capital of the company. Further,
360 One Special Opportunities Fund through several series collectively hold 29.67% of the paid-up pre-Offer Equity Share
capital of the company.

Brief Biographies of Directors

Suresh Kumar Sethi is the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the company. He has over 3 decades of experience
in the financial services industry with financial services companies such as Citigroup, Yes Bank and Vodafone M- Pesa across
India, Kenya, UK, Argentina, and USA. Prior to this role, he was the managing director and chief executive officer of India Post
Payments Bank.

Jayesh Waman Sule is the Whole-time Director and Chief Operating Officer of the company. He was previously associated
with NSDL and has over 2 decades of experience in capital markets and IT-enabled services.

Karan Omprakash Bhagat is the Non-Executive Director of the company. Previously he was associated with Kotak Mahindra
Bank Ltd as a vice president. He is currently the Managing Director of 360 One WAM Ltd.

Mukesh Agarwal is the Non-Executive Director of the company. He has over 25 years of experience in the financial services
sector. He was previously associated with CRISIL Ltd as the president of their India research business. He is currently the
Managing Director of NSE Indices Ltd and NSE Data and Analytics Ltd.

Shailesh Vishnubhai Haribhakti is a Non-Executive Director of the company. He is a chairman and independent director on
the Boards of various Indian Companies.

Abhaya Prasad Hota is the Independent Director of the company. He was the managing director and chief executive officer of
National Payments Corporation of India and the chief general manager of the Reserve Bank of India. He has over 35 years of
experience in the financial services sector.

Lloyd Mathias is an Independent Director of the company. He was previously associated with Motorola, Tata Teleservices Ltd
and HP PPS Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd. He was also associated with Pepsico International. He has over 30 years of experience in
marketing and product management.

Shailesh Sharad Kekre is an Independent Director of the company. He was previously associated with McKinsey & Company
and is currently partner at Budhyati Ventures LLP.

Preeti Gautam Mehta is an Independent Director of the company. She is a member of the Bar Council of Maharashtra and has
been practising as an advocate for over 30 years. She is currently senior partner at Kanga & Co., Advocates and Solicitors.

Aruna Krishnamurthy Rao is an Independent Director of the company. She is a member of the NERL technology advisory
committee. She was previously associated with Kotak Mahindra Bank as chief technology officer.

Key Managerial Personnel

Sudeep Bhatia is the Chief Financial Officer and executive vice president of the company. He joined the company on October
7, 2022. He has over 20 years of experience.

Maulesh Kantharia is the Company Secretary and Compliance Officer and vice president of the company. He has over 20 years
of experience. He joined the company on August 2, 2017.

OFFER DETAILS
WACA per Equity
The Offer for Sale by: Upto 6,191,000 Equity Shares
Share (in ₹)
360 One Special Opportunities Fund Upto 459,617 Equity Shares 950.10

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 360 ONE Special Opportunities Fund – Series 2 Upto 320,177 Equity Shares 950.10
360 ONE Special Opportunities Fund – Series 3 Upto 148,197 Equity Shares 950.10
360 ONE Special Opportunities Fund – Series 4 Upto 396,843 Equity Shares 950.10
360 ONE Special Opportunities Fund – Series 5 Upto 309,225 Equity Shares 950.10
NSE Investments Limited Upto 1,783,395 Equity Shares 55.00
Administrator of the Specified Undertaking of the Unit Trust of India Upto 243,175 Equity Shares 10.00
HDFC Bank Limited Upto 705,674 Equity Shares 49.50
Axis Bank Limited Upto 712,077 Equity Shares 112.00
Deutsche Bank A.G. Upto 712,077 Equity Shares 49.50
Union Bank of India Upto 400,543 Equity Shares 26.00
WACA = Weighted Average Cost of Acquisition

SHAREHOLDING PATTERN
Pre-offer Post-offer
% of Total Number of % of Total
Number of Equity Share No. of Shares Equity Equity Share
Shareholders Equity Shares Capital offered Shares Capital
Promoter & Promoter Group 0 0 0 0 0
Public – Selling Shareholders 30,165,740 74.58% 6,191,000 23,974,740 59.27%
Public - Others 10,280,992 25.42% - 16,471,992 40.73%
Total for Public Shareholders 40,446,732 100.00% 6,191,000 40,446,732 100.00%
Total Equity Share Capital 40,446,732 100.00% 6,191,000 40,446,732 100.00%

BUSINESS OVERVIEW
Protean eGov Technologies Limited (“Protean”) is one of the key IT-enabled solution companies in India engaged in
conceptualizing, developing and executing nationally critical and population scale greenfield technology solutions. They
collaborate with the government and have extensive experience in creating digital public infrastructure and developing
innovative citizen-centric e-governance solutions. Protean was originally setup as a depository in 1995 and created a
systemically important national infrastructure for capital market development in India. They have been the chief architect and
implementer for some of the most critical and largescale technology infrastructure projects in India. Their solutions have led
to identification of bottlenecks in government services, increased transparency and efficiency, redefined delivery of public
services and led to a reduction in service delivery costs. They are among the leading Indian companies in the e-governance
sector in terms of profitability, operating income, operating profit, and operating profit margin in Fiscal 2020. They are a
professionally managed company and are led by an experienced senior management team whose expertise and industry
experience have helped them grow their operations and innovate their services.
Since inception and as of June 30, 2023, Protean has implemented and managed 19 projects spread across 7 ministries and
autonomous bodies ushering change in public delivery of services. Their primary engagement has been with following
ministries:

Protean has been instrumental in establishing public digital infrastructure and creating e-governance interventions impacting
multiple sectors of the Indian economy. Some of their key interventions include:
• Modernising the direct tax infrastructure in India through projects like Permanent Account Number (“PAN”) issuance,
the Tax Information Network (“TIN”) including Online Tax Accounting Systems (“OLTAS”).

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 • Strengthening the old age security system in the country by building the core IT infrastructure as a Central
Recordkeeping Agency (“CRA”) for the National Pension System (“NPS”).
• Enabling the universal social security system for all Indians, particularly the workers in the unorganized sector by
creating technology infrastructure as a CRA for the Atal Pension Yojana (“APY”).
• Contributing to the India Stack, a set of application programming interface (“API”) that allows governments,
businesses, startups, and developers to utilise a unique digital infrastructure to prepare solutions that are presence-
less, paperless and enable cashless service delivery. They have also enabled the BFSI sector by providing Aadhaar-
based identity authentication and e-Sign services, as a licensed certifying authority empanelled by the Controller of
Certifying Authorities. They were appointed as a registrar for enrolling citizens for Aadhaar.
• Improving accessibility to education and skill financing through creation of efficient digital marketplaces enabling
discovery of financial resources through platforms such as Vidya Lakshmi and Vidya Saarathi.
• Contributing to and supporting open digital building blocks such as Open Network for Digital Commerce (“ONDC”)
for use-cases across sectors like e-commerce, mobility, healthcare, agriculture and education. They are one of the
key and early contributors to the open source community and protocols that are powering ONDC.

These projects have resulted in reduction of turnaround time by digitizing processes, ensuring better compliance with
government policies and enhancing transparency by providing real-time reports and dashboards to stakeholders.

Project-wise major highlights and the market share:

* Source: CRISIL Report

Protean has made continuous investments in new technologies and capabilities and developing sophisticated technology
architecture. They have domain knowledge for various industries that allows them to develop functionalities that address
specific requirements of end-users, businesses, and public entities. While executing large and complex projects, they leverages
their comprehensive program management expertise. Their clients benefit from their delivery model, significant experience
across various technologies, industry knowledge, project management expertise and proprietary software engineering tools
developed in-house.

Company’s business model has resulted in positive cash flows over the years and their cash flows from their operating activities
were ₹100.12 crore, ₹ 94.27 crore, ₹ 137.02 crore, ₹ 10.94 crore and ₹ (7.90) crore in Fiscal 2021, 2022 and 2023 and and in
the 3 months ended June 30, 2022 and June 30, 2023, respectively. They have been profitable since Fiscal 1999 and have
consistently declared and paid dividends since Fiscal 2001.

Protean is professionally managed company and is led by an experienced senior management team whose expertise and
extensive industry experience has helped them grow their operations and innovate their services over the years. Their
Shareholders include financial institutions such as NSE Investments Ltd, 360 ONE Special Opportunities Fund (formerly
known as IIFL Special Opportunities Fund), SUUTI, Citicorp Finance India Ltd and certain public and private sector banks such
as State Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, Union Bank of India, Bank of Baroda and Canara Bank, HDFC Bank Ltd, Axis
Bank Ltd, Deutsche Bank A.G, The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Ltd, Standard Chartered Bank, among
others.
The company has embraced an impact weighted framework to guide all business decisions with a focus on Economic, Social
and Governance (“ESG”) framework that guides their business. They understand their responsibility towards the society at
large and therefore, their business model focuses on the foundation of social capitalism. They are also cognizant of other
important sustainability aspects and endeavour to continuously enhance their operations towards factors influencing ESG. A

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comprehensive impact diagnostic assessment has been undertaken by an independent agency and they intend to incorporate
their audit findings into their strategic planning process. The assessment will help them identify opportunities to improve
further towards global and national sustainability goals.

REVENUE FROM OPERATIONS

3 months ended Jun’ 30 Fiscal
2023 2022 2023 2022 2021
Amount % of Amount % of Amount % of Amount % of Amount % of
Sale of Services ₹ Cr Total ₹ Cr Total ₹ Cr Total ₹ Cr Total ₹ Cr Total
Transaction fees 176.63 80.14% 119.76 76.40% 583.91 78.67% 550.49 79.68% 452.68 75.06%
Accounts maintenance fees 43.53 19.75% 36.70 23.41% 156.98 21.15% 139.09 20.13% 149.34 24.76%
Other operational income 0.24 0.11% 0.29 0.19% 1.32 0.18% 1.33 0.19% 1.12 0.19%
Total Revenue from Operations 220.40 100.00% 156.75 100.00% 742.21 100.00% 690.91 100.00% 603.13 100.00%

COMPANY’S KEY PRODUCTS

Tax Modernization

The GoI constituted a high-powered committee comprising of 10 prominent members from public and private institutions
under the chairmanship of Dr. Vijay L. Kelkar. The Kelkar Committee report mentioned that the availability of IT expertise and
the presence of world class (common carrier) network systems developed by Protean could be relatively quickly deployed to
make a systemic improvement in processes to reduce transaction costs. The establishment of a tax information network could
facilitate transactions, akin to securities markets, and establish secure and seamless logistics of tax collection through
integration of primary information, record keeping, retrieval and enforcement.

Tax Information Network

The GoI entrusted Protean to incubate and implement the TIN in 2004, resulting in the creation of a consolidated electronic
tax ledger for each taxpayer providing complete details of taxes paid and a 360 degree view of tax collected and deducted at
source. This has helped in modernization of the direct tax collection system, processing, monitoring and accounting of direct
taxes and has made tax administration more effective, facilitated reconciliation, filing of TDS returns convenient, reduced
compliance cost, improved turnaround time and increased transparency.

In order to provide universal access to all tax deductors, Protean established a pan India network of facilitation centres to
facilitate the electronic filing of returns and provide assisted services to tax deductors. This network now comprises of 7,121
TIN facilitation centres, operational across 1,652 locations, as of June 30, 2023.

In Fiscal 2023, 2.10 million deductors filed TDS returns electronically through TIN systems.

As a part of TIN, Protean has setup the OLTAS. OLTAS is an online system for collecting, accounting and reporting of the receipts
and payments of direct taxes from all kinds of taxpayers through a network of bank branches. The taxpayers’ data flows from
banks directly to TIN to reduce paperwork for tax credit and the validation system. The system is well placed to reduce taxpayer
grievances and has been among the key e-governance initiatives undertaken by the I-T Department.
For empowering quality decision making, a separate OLTAS dashboard facility has been introduced through TIN for MoF
including the Finance Minister, senior functionaries of Central Board of Direct Taxes, Chief Commissioners and Commissioners
of I-T Department across India, for monitoring direct tax collections on a daily basis. Along with the details of direct tax
collection, the OLTAS dashboard also covers the details of paid refunds for both income tax and TDS.

Various sub-processes such as processing of TAN (tax deduction / collection account number) applications, acceptance of
annual information returns/statement of financial transactions and Form 24G statement were implemented as a part of TIN
to ensure achievement of the goals envisaged for modernizing the direct tax administration.

OLTAS channel as a mode for direct tax collection has been discontinued with effect from April 1, 2023 on account of migration
of direct tax payment system from OLTAS to TIN 2.0.

PAN Services

The I-T Department, GoI authorised their company to set up and manage PAN service centres for application processing,
collection, verification of proof of identity and proof of address, PAN card printing and logistics management. To offer these
services, Protean has established PAN service centres and TIN facilitation centres at various locations across India. They also

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offer the option of submitting application through their service centres or online through their website. In addition to
allotment of new PAN, they also take care of reprint of PAN or/and changes or corrections in PAN data.

Company’s nationwide network of TIN facilitation centres and PAN processing centres spread across India stood at over
79,000, as of June 30, 2023. Cumulative number of PAN application processed exceeded 44.6 crore including 1.93 crore e-
PAN cards, as of June 30, 2023.

On an average in Fiscal 2023 and in the 3 months ended June 30, 2023, Protean managed over 0.11 million 0.15 million
applications per day respectively and over 4.58 million applications per month in Fiscal 2023 on an average. As on June 30,
2023 they hold a leading market share of 45% in this segment.

Online PAN Verification

The online PAN verification service was authorized by the I-T Department, GoI of India to launch a verification service for PANs
by authorized entities. Entities who avail this facility are ‘investment advisors’ approved by SEBI, housing finance companies,
insurance companies, banks, financial institutions, educational institutions established by regulatory bodies, government
agencies, stock exchanges, commodity exchanges and clearing corporations.

The online PAN verification facility has assisted in the development of strong due diligence and compliance mechanism needed
for fulfilling regulatory as well as business requirements across the BFSI sector.

As of June 30, 2023, cumulative PANs verified through their online PAN verification system were over 68.38 crore. They
achieved a peak volume of over 1 crore transactions request in a single day in Fiscal 2023.
Central Recordkeeping Agency - National Pension System
Pension reforms in India were set out by the ‘OASIS’ Committee and culminated into the implementation of National Pension
System by the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (“PFRDA”) under directions of GoI. To strengthen the old
age security infrastructure in the country and to make India a pensioned society, unbundled architecture was established by
PFRDA in 2007. Protean were appointed as a CRA after a selection process from among various institutions in the country.
They were selected based on their demonstrated experience in conceptualizing, implementing and managing similar large
infrastructures across various projects.
Currently, they are the provider of NPS services to the Central and State Governments including their autonomous bodies and
public sector banks. They have been recently awarded a perpetual license for operating as a CRA for the NPS.
Protean has undertaken several initiatives including:
• Implementing subscriber awareness programs across India to increase awareness about NPS;
• Launched a YouTube channel “NSDL-NPS ki Pathshala”, a virtual NPS school that provides information on product
as well as processes;
• Educating people on NPS through social media platforms; and
• Started a podcast channel – ‘NPS ki Pathshala’, an audio extension of the YouTube channel
• APIfication – Seamless processing by stakeholders.
Atal Pension Yojana (“APY”)
To address the longevity risks of workers in the unorganised sector and to encourage them to voluntarily save for their
retirement, the Indian government announced a new scheme called Atal Pension Yojana (APY) in the Union Budget 2015 –
2016. APY is administered by the PFRDA through the NPS architecture. Protean is the only CRA managing the infrastructure of
the APY in India.
As of June 30, 2023, more than 420 banks and their over 172,000 branches are connected to their system to provide APY
services.
They also provide lead generation and e-APY services. The ‘Gift an NPS/APY’ account or pension concept is being popularized
by them on social media platforms and this will help increase the coverage of APY among the targeted sector.
As of June 30, 2023, CRA had more than 6.4 crore NPS and APY accounts and they are the leading agency managing NPS with
98% market share in terms of NPS Subscribers, 98% market share in terms of NPS AUM and 99% in terms of pension wealth
i.e., more than 8 trillion AUM.
National Identification
Aadhaar

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The implementation of the Aadhaar has led to a revolution in authentication and consequently in monitoring and security,
credit ecosystems, payment systems and direct benefit transfers. Protean is appointed as a registrar by the Unique
Identification Authority of India to facilitate registration of residents for Aadhaar. As a registrar they carried out more than 9
crore Aadhaar enrolments, as of January 30, 2019. However, their engagement under this project was concluded in Fiscal 2019
and has not been renewed further.
Aadhaar Authentication / e-KYC Services
e-KYC process often referred to a paperless KYC, is the process through which verification of customer credentials are done
electronically. e-KYC services are majorly used in situations where service providers need to verify the authenticity of details
provided by the customer. In addition, to support digital payments and increase the financial inclusion in rural part of nation,
GoI has introduced Aadhaar enabled payment system through which one can use Aadhaar linked bank account to process the
transaction.

As a part of the Aadhaar enablement ecosystem, Protean functions as an authentication agency and provide comprehensive
e-KYC services based on Aadhaar. In Fiscal 2023, Aadhaar authentication transactions carried out by them were 27.68 crore in
Fiscal 2023 and for the 3 months ended June 30, 2023, the transactions were 8.85 crore. e-KYC transactions in Fiscal 2023
stood at 24.60 crore and 7.28 crore for the 3 months ended June 30, 2023. Multiple clients including government institutions
and departments, banks and NBFCs, payment companies and insurance companies have used their services to fulfil their e-
KYC and authentication processes.

e‐Sign Services

Enablement of electronic signatures is critical for end-to-end digitisation of documentation processes across various sectors
facilitating paperless operation. Electronic signature (“e-Sign”) is a service through which electronic signing of documents can
be done in an easy, efficient and secure manner. Protean has been empanelled by the Controller of Certifying Authorities of
India as a licensed ‘Certifying Authority’ and e-Sign Service provider.

During Fiscal 2023, they generated over 10.1 crore e-Signs while for the 3 months ended June 30, 2023, they generated over
3.1 crore e-Signs.

Education and Skill Financing Solutions

Under the ambit of the Pradhan Mantri Vidya Lakshmi Karyakram, Protean launched an education loan aggregation portal
called Vidya Lakshmi that helps students apply for education loans to multiple banks using a common application form. This
portal has been developed under the guidance of Department of Financial Services, Ministry of Finance, Department of Higher
Education, Ministry of Education and the Indian Banks Association.
Since the launch of the portal on August 15, 2015, the facility of online submission of education loan applications is available
in respect of 43 banks which have registered 80 educational loan schemes on the Vidya Lakshmi portal and 192,630 students
have registered on the portal, as of June 30, 2023.

Another offering in the education sector is Vidyasaarathi, a technology-enabled initiative by Protean that helps manage the
entire online scholarship management, from submission and review of application, award of scholarship to the disbursement
of funds. Vidyasaarathi can be used by fund providers, industries, and corporate entities to promote education by designing
and managing education finance schemes to disburse their CSR fund in higher education.
More than 1.46 million students are registered on Vidyasaarathi portal and 33 corporates have disbursed scholarships as of
June 30, 2023.

Other Projects

Sunset Project - Vidya Kaushal

In the skilling sector, Vidya Kaushal platform developed by Protean for the National Skill Development Corporation enables
any student to apply for financial assistance / loan to pursue Skill development training courses. This unique skill platform aims
to provide truly seamless access to skill loan funding aligned with the national vision of developing a skilled India, which will
help in creating greater employment opportunities and employable skills.

National Judicial Reference System (“NJRS”)

The NJRS was developed by Protean for the I-T Department. It is a platform for decision support and timely actions in direct
tax cases. NJRS acts as a tool to achieve efficiency in the tax litigation process of I-T Department and is a repository of tax
judgments.

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NJRS provided a mechanism to manage appeals and judgments through:

• Appeals Repository and Management System (“ARMS”): ARMS is an online repository for all pending appeals at Income
Tax Appellate Tribunal, High Courts and the Supreme Court.
• Judicial Research and Reference System (“JRRS”): JRRS is a repository of judicial orders as a single, indexed, searchable,
cross-linked, database of judgments and orders of Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, Authority of Advance Ruling, High
Courts and the Supreme Court.
The contract for the NJRS came to an end on November 30, 2020.

Workflow Approval Management System for Central Board of Film Certification (“CBFC”)

Protean has been engaged by the CBFC, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, GoI as the ‘Implementation Agency’ for the
design, development and maintenance of workflow approval management system, online film certification application
processing system and the CBFC website. This system enables applicants to submit film certification requests online along with
necessary supporting documents, make payment of processing fees online, upload the film to be certified and view the status
of their certification requests online.

GST Pilot Implementation

Under this engagement, Protean undertook the following activities:

• Conducted ‘As-Is’ study of the state IT infrastructure;
• Developed a tax registration module:
• Existing tax payer data migration from centre and states databases;
• New tax payer registration; and
• Amendments of tax payer registration details.
• Developed a tax payment data upload module;
• Developed a tax payer returns acceptance module;
• Provided reports;
• Prepared a Detailed Project Report for a full scale GST implementation
GST Application Service Provider (“ASP”) and GST Suvidha Provider (“GSP”) services
Protean is selected by the GoI to incubate the National Information Utility for a GST pilot project in 2011 that was successfully
implemented. In 2017, they were appointed as a GSP as well as ASP for facilitating GST compliance by dealers. As a GSP, they
provide a variety of services including GST verification and GST tax filing. Dealers are able to file GST returns online or by
visiting facilitation centres.

Revenue Management System (“RMS”)

Protean has designed, developed and hosted a centralized RMS called ‘SARAS’ for the DoT, GoI(“DoT”). This system enables
the government to collect non-tax revenues. SARAS has been conceptualised and designed for use by all licensees across
India for all transactions and communications with DoT, thus ensuring:
• Direct online interface of licensees with the DoT;
• Online filing and document repository of all compliance related documents, including adjusted gross revenue statements,
deduction claims, bank guarantees, representations, deduction verifications, assessment reports and demand notices;
• Online scrutiny and verification of documents submitted by licensees;
• Online license fee and spectrum user charges assessment and digitization of demand notices;
• Online deduction claim submission and verification and communication with licensee;
• All department orders/guidelines built into process flows/business logics;
• Notifications to licensee and departmental users through email and SMS;
• Online assessment of non-adjusted gross revenues-based license also built in SARAS;
• Online submission and response to representations/grievance of licensees;
• Integrated with Bharatkosh for one-stop payment portal for all licensees; and
• Online real-time tracking of demand notices and bank guarantee notices.

NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE
In keeping with the huge and diverse demographic needs of the country Protean has enabled a “phygital” (Physical + Digital)
model for enabling last mile reach. They have been at the forefront of enabling the e-governance infrastructure of the nation,
and at the same time they have a pan-India physical network of over 167,000 centres which includes over 79,000 PAN and TIN

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facilitation centres and over 88,000 points of presence, as of June 30, 2023, across their various offerings to provide “assisted
services” to citizens who are digitally excluded.

Services Number of Centers as of June 30, 2023

Facilitation centres for PAN, TAN, TDS processing Over 79,000
Point of Presence for NPS Over 88,000
Nodal Offices for NPS Over 26,000 (Central Government); and Over 263,000 (State Governments)

COMPETITIVE STRENGTHS
• Pioneer and market leader in universal, citizen centric and population scale e-governance solutions
Protean has demonstrable experience in implementing and managing population scale critical solutions, and since inception
and as of June 30, 2023, they have developed and implemented 19 projects across 7 ministries across India. They are amongst
the few private players in India in e-governance space working towards the achievement of Digital India initiative.
Their leadership trend and statistics for the last 3 Fiscals and the 3 months ended June 30, 2022 and June 30, 2023 highlighting
certain major projects:
As of and for the 3 months
ended Jun’30, As of and for the year ended March 31,
2023 2022 2023 2022 2021
PAN Cards sent to printer (Cr) 1.37 0.84 3.86 3.55 2.97
PANs Verified (Cr) 68.38 56.22 241.29 212.25 93.72
NPS – New Subscriber Base (Cr) 0.02 0.03 0.13 0.10 0.08
NPS – Cumulative Subscriber Base (Cr) 1.66 1.53 1.63 1.50 1.40
NPS – AUM (₹ Cr) 908,577.43 699,976.94 842,123.05 694,553.92 559,287.08
Atal Pension Yojana – New Subscriber Base (Cr) 0.18 0.20 0.97 0.82 0.69
Atal Pension Yojana – Cumulative Subscriber Base (Cr) 4.78 3.83 4.60 3.63 2.81
Atal Pension Yojana – AUM (₹ Cr) 29,582.57 21,450.41 27,222.74 20,922.58 15,687.11
Aadhar Authentication (Cr) 8.85 4.46 27.68 27.50 17.93
e-KYC (Cr) 7.28 4.43 24.60 17.44 9.11
e-Sign (Cr) 3.16 2.17 10.11 8.20 3.56

• Secure, scalable and advanced technology infrastructure

Protean has made investments in technology platforms that in their experience have strengthened their competitive
advantage, increased their operating leverage, ensured scalability, and improved functionality while driving innovation. These
investments have also helped them to provide their clients and other stakeholders with bespoke services. Company’s market-
first innovations have been consistently implemented across various sectors and products such as TIN in taxation, pilot
infrastructure for GST. As of September, 2023, ONDC is live in 400+ cities in alpha phase and 7 cities in beta/test phase.
Protean has developed scalable platforms by adopting a differentiated technology-centric approach focusing on increasing
security and risk mitigation to help drive growth. Under the TIN project, their secure and scalable infrastructure handled over
127,000 e-tax transactions per hour on days that they recorded the highest number of transactions in Fiscal 2021 that grew
to 156,132 e-tax transactions per hour on days that they recorded the highest number of transactions in Fiscal 2023. Their

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TIN, PAN, NPS, Aadhaar authentication, e-KYC and GSP services are ISO/IEC 27001:2013 certified for their information
management systems while CRA - Subscriber Services and Systems Infrastructure Workgroup has been appraised at Maturity
Level - 5 of CMMI for services as per SCAMPI. In addition, their data centre at Pune is Tier III certified.

• Large physical infrastructure with pan-India network and scale resulting in inclusion

Protean has developed a pan-India service delivery network across India for various public and other services provided by
them. Their service network has grown over the years and grew from 33,041 centres, as of March 31, 2021 to 74,435 centres,
as of March 31, 2023 and further 79,374 centres, as of June 30, 2023. As of June 30,2023, their PAN TIN facilitation centres
network was in over 12,000 PIN codes spread across over 700 districts in India. In addition, as of June 30, 2023, they covered
over 26,000 nodal offices of the central government, over 263,000 nodal offices of state governments and had over 87,000
points of presence across India for the administration of the NPS.

As of June 30, 2023, Protean operated 7,121 TIN facilitation centres across 1,652 locations accepting various statements from
taxpayers including tax deducted at source, tax collected at source, annual information returns and statement of specified
financial transactions through their network. They have expanded their TIN network from 5,956 TIN facilitation centres, as of
March 31, 2021 to 6,988 TIN facilitation centres, as of March 31, 2023. Their digital touch points include their e-Sign, e-KYC,
Aadhaar Authentication, e-PAN services. In Fiscal 2021, they handled 10.11 crore of e-Sign transactions which is highest in a
single day and crossed 27.63 crore e-Sign transactions cumulative until Fiscal 2023. They also generated 3.65 crore e-PANs in
Fiscal 2023.

• Diversified, granular and annuity based service offerings

Company’s offerings cater to multiple target groups and customer segments including businesses and retail consumers apart
from the government, ensuring low concentration risk. Their diversified service offerings are spread across sectors such as tax
administration, pension record keeping solutions, national identity and identity authentication solutions, education, and skill
financing solutions. A significant portion of their revenue generated from their offerings are based on per-transaction basis
leading to substantial granularity and consequent stability in revenues. In Fiscal 2023, they carried out over 27.68 crore
Aadhaar authentications and over 24.60 crore e-KYC transactions. In NPS, the number of subscribers were grew to 1.63 crore,
as of June 30, 2023. Under the APY, the number of subscribers as of June 30, 2023 were 4.78 crore, respectively.
• Track record of healthy financial performance

Protean has established a track-record of strong and consistent financial performance. Their technology driven operations and
low operational costs have resulted in comparatively higher operating margins. They have been able to scale their technology
platforms with limited capital expenditure and working capital to offer additional service offerings. The multi-term population
scale projects they undertake ensure visibility of revenues. Their operations have been funded entirely by internal accruals
since Fiscal 1998 and they are a debt-free company.
Their business model has been profitable since Fiscal 1999 and have consistently declared and paid dividend since Fiscal 2001.
(₹ in Cr)
• Experienced senior management team backed by strong corporate governance standards and supported by marquee
investors

Company’s experienced senior management team has been instrumental in the growth of their operations over the years with
many of them being associated with the company for over 2 decades. Their collective industry experience has enabled
company to anticipate and capitalize on changing market trends, manage and grow their operations and leverage and deepen
client relationships. Their Key Management Personnel have a track-record of executing large scale projects.

KEY BUSINESS STRATEGIES

• Diversify the offerings with a focus on new sectors

The company intends to position themselves as an enabler of digitalization to create sustainable public digital infrastructure
across sectors and continue to invest in improving their existing technology systems or implement new, more advanced
technology systems that may be developed.

The sectors targeted are in the areas such as:

Healthcare: Specific solutions in these areas are intended to be built using latest and open source technologies in accordance
with the NDHM vision. They have developed a health-based platform in partnership with the Indian Academy of Pediatrics to
expand their services across India.

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Education and Skilling: The National Digital Education Architecture (“NDEAR”) has been conceived by GoI as a unifying national
digital infrastructure to energise and catalyse the education ecosystem.

Agriculture: The company intends to leverage their existing competencies and investments in platforms like ‘Sunbird’ for
capacity building in agriculture and use other open platforms and protocols such as OCEN and Beckn to create e-marketplaces
and provide access to agriculture credits through a one-stop solution.

• Building capability around data analytics, digital verification and due diligence

The company has a track record of successfully implementing and managing large and critical applications and databases and
developing solutions that offer operational efficiency and productivity. Leveraging on this experience, they intend to build
core capabilities around data led businesses.

In the Indian market, IoT and big data are the strong drivers for data centre investments. The Indian market is
witnessing the adoption of a variety of IoT-enabled devices at a steady pace. The implementation of 5G network for mobile
devices will aid growth of IoT and big data analytics (Source: CRISIL Report).

In view of the above opportunities, they have formed 2 new subsidiaries:

These opportunities enable them to build on their strength of managing and monitoring large databases and build offerings
around data led businesses such as Account Aggregator; Digital verification and due diligence; Cloud Services and Cyber
Security. Protean Account Aggregator Limited, as a regulated entity under the direct supervision of the RBI, for the account
aggregation business.

• Expanding into newer geographies

The Ministry of External Affairs, GoI has shortlisted Protean under its “Development Partnership Frameworks” to promote
India’s capabilities globally. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, GoI has decided to make the CoWIN platform available
to different countries for managing vaccinations and has shortlisted Protean as an IT Services firm for customization,
implementation and roll out of CoWIN for countries.

• Adoption of disruptive technologies and investment in open-source solutions, protocol and networks

With this vision and a clearly identified business potential, they have already invested in developing Centres of Excellence for
open-source technologies such as Sunbird, Beckn and OCEN and would continue to focus and invest further so as to build and
allow products and services which would be built for digital public good.

COMPETITION
The e-governance industry in India is highly competitive. Company’s key competitors include:
CDSL Ventures Ltd;
CMS Computer Ltd;
Computer Age Management Services Ltd;
CSC E-Governance Services Ltd;
Karvv Data Management Services Ltd;
KFin Technologies Private Ltd;
Sify Technologies Ltd;
UTI Infrastructure Technology and Services Ltd.

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For additional information & risk factors please refer to the Red Herring Prospectus - 12 -