IRCTC likely to apply for payments license and amend articles of association — Street is excited

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Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) is likely to amend its association articles, a document specifying regulations for a company's operations and defining its purpose, CNBC-Awaaz reported on Friday.

According to the public sector railway firm’s analyst conference call, it may also apply for a payments license with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

Following the developments, IRCTC shares rose more than 2 percent in early deals and traded 1.08 percent higher at Rs 677.30 on BSE at 10:50 am.

The stock has given a return of 15 percent in the past month, but it has erased nearly 20 percent of investors' wealth in 2022 (year-to-date) as against the benchmark Sensex, which has risen 0.3 percent during the period.

Today’s uptrend in the IRCTC stock comes two days after the Indian Railways' ticketing arm reported a nearly three-fold jump in net profit to Rs 248.5 crore for the April to June 2022 period compared to the same quarter a year ago.

However, Street remained concerned about its core ticketing business as the quarterly margin fell 820 basis points against the same quarter of FY22. The company’s margin has been falling gradually.

IRCTC reported a 3.5 times jump in its total revenue for the April-June period compared with the year-ago period — thanks to growth in businesses other than internet ticketing.

The share of the revenue from IRCTC’s internet ticketing unit came down to 35.4 percent for the April-June period from 42.3 percent in the previous three months.