MobiKwik's ₹40 Crore Swing to Profit Includes an ₹11.8 Crore Fraud Charge in the Base, and All Its Revenue Growth Came From Lending
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MobiKwik's ₹40 Crore Swing to Profit Includes an ₹11.8 Crore Fraud Charge in the Base, and All Its Revenue Growth Came From Lending
Payments revenue was flat at ₹208.8 crore in the September quarter while financial services added ₹25.6 crore, which is the whole of the company's revenue growth.
MobiKwik reported a net profit of ₹11.8 crore for the September quarter against a ₹28.6 crore loss a year earlier, a swing of ₹40.4 crore, per MediaNama, published November 2. Roughly ₹11.8 crore of that swing is a base effect: the September 2025 quarter's loss included an exceptional charge of exactly that size.
Inc42's report on the September 2025 quarter says MobiKwik booked an "exceptional loss of INR 11.8 Cr" from fraud by some registered merchants and users who exploited a technical bug in the platform. The company filed an FIR in September 2025 alleging it was defrauded of ₹40.4 crore, and had recovered ₹21.9 crore, with another ₹6.6 crore secured through merchant affidavits and court orders, at the time of that report.
Strip the charge out and the September 2025 loss was about ₹16.8 crore, so the underlying improvement is about ₹28.6 crore. The two ₹11.8 crore figures, this quarter's profit and that quarter's charge, are a coincidence; the profit figure is MediaNama's alone.
Revenue: lending carried the growth
Operating revenue was ₹295.7 crore, up 9% from ₹270.2 crore and up 5% from ₹281.5 crore in the June quarter. MediaNama splits it into payments revenue of ₹208.8 crore, flat, and financial services revenue of ₹86.9 crore, up 42%.
Inc42's report on the September 2025 quarter gives that quarter's split: payments ₹208.9 crore and financial services ₹61.3 crore, the latter down 51.7% after MobiKwik discontinued its ZIP buy-now-pay-later product. Financial services therefore added ₹25.6 crore, and total revenue added ₹25.5 crore. Payments contributed nothing.
- Payments, Q2 FY26208.9 ₹ crore
- Payments, Q2 FY27208.8 ₹ crore
- Financial services, Q2 FY2661.3 ₹ crore
- Financial services, Q2 FY2786.9 ₹ crore
Source: MediaNama (Q2 FY27) and Inc42 (Q2 FY26), accessed 2026-11-03
Volumes rose, revenue did not
The volume numbers look stronger than the revenue line. MediaNama reports platform gross merchandise value of ₹59,677 crore, a record, up 34%. UPI transactions rose 52% to 210 million and UPI GMV rose 42% to ₹24,700 crore. Merchant payments GMV rose 76% to about ₹13,300 crore and merchant payments revenue rose 150%.
Platform GMV of ₹59,677 crore against operating revenue of ₹295.7 crore is a take rate of about 0.5%, so a 34% rise in volume that produces flat payments revenue means the extra volume is arriving in the lowest-yield places. MediaNama does not say which products account for the gap.
Lending: more disbursed, more guaranteed
Lending disbursal GMV rose 34% to ₹1,082.6 crore from ₹807.1 crore. Repeat loans rose from 40% to 59% of loans during the quarter, and ₹200 crore of disbursals came from pre-approved offers, per MediaNama.
The cost line to read next to it is financial guarantee expenses, up 59% to ₹56.2 crore. That equals about 65% of financial services revenue of ₹86.9 crore, though the two lines are not a like-for-like pair. Guarantee costs rising faster than the loan book is the specific item to watch in the next result.
| Expense line, Q2 FY27 | Value | Change on year |
|---|---|---|
| Total, excluding finance costs and depreciation | ₹280.1 crore | -2% |
| Payment processing charges | ₹119.5 crore | -11% |
| Employee benefits | ₹74.6 crore | -8% |
| Financial guarantee expenses | ₹56.2 crore | +59% |
EBITDA was ₹22.7 crore against a loss of ₹6.4 crore in the September 2025 quarter, the same ₹6.4 crore Inc42 reported for the base quarter. Net profit rose 55% from ₹7.6 crore in the June quarter, per MediaNama.
A claim from the company itself
The only direct quote in MediaNama's report is attributed to MobiKwik as a company, not to an executive: "AI now generates 92% of the company's code." Employee benefits fell 8% to ₹74.6 crore in the quarter, but the report does not tie the two, and we have no filing that does.
How it compares
A profit swing that depends on what sits in the base quarter is not unique to MobiKwik: Delhivery's Q2 profit swing also turned on one-off items. For another Indian fintech where the price is still unconfirmed, see Prosus's Navi investment.
The next checkpoint is the third-quarter result, where guarantee costs will show whether the lending revenue is as profitable as the headline suggests.
Sources
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