Do you have a gift card or a membership card from any large retailer, such as Shoppers Stop or the Future Group? Chances are it is powered by Pine Labs—a company we usually identify with those nifty machines most retailers use to swipe our credit or debit cards. The point-of-sale (PoS) solutions provider is also the top issuer of prepaid payment instruments (PPIs) in India, with over six of every 10 cards coming from it. Interestingly, it started its journey two-and-a-half decades ago by offering a smart-card-based payment and loyalty solution for fuel retailers before shifting focus to PoS business. But then came the Unified Payments Interface. It did away with the fee merchants pay for processing payments, making monetization tricky for Pine Labs. It set the company on a different path: expanding its solution portfolio to include data analytics, loyalty, and gifting program for retailers. In addition, Pine Labs started offering customer-credit solutions and expanded to international shores by launching operations in Southeast Asia and the UAE. Though the digital-payments vertical is still the mainstay of the company, it's the gift-card vertical that has emerged as the key contributor to its top line. The revenue share of Pine Labs’ gifting, discounts, and loyalty-card business grew to 40% in the year ended March 2022, thanks to Qwikcilver—its most expensive acquisition to date. Now, the Sequoia-backed company seeks to grow this business even more with the acquisition of Saluto Wellness, which will add employee-rewards management and customer engagement to Pine Labs’ issuing business. But Pine Labs' latest move is just a small peg in its diversification push ahead of the planned IPO, in which it is targeting a valuation of US$6 billion.
