Aye Finance Limited (AYE) share price

₹179.46 on NSE as of 2026-09-11. +0.76% on the day. 52-week range ₹90.07 to ₹189.13. Financial Services.

What the company does

Aye is a non-banking finance company that commenced operations in 2014, with the objective of tapping into the underpenetrated segment of micro and small businesses. Aye derives strength from its diversified and institutional shareholding base, comprising global private equity and long-term investors with a demonstrated track record of capital support. At end of FY26, key shareholders include Elevation Capital (12.6%), LGT Capital (10.1%), Alpha Wave India (7.8%), Capital G LP (7.7%), British International Investments Plc (7.4%), A91 Emerging Fund (7.2%) and IMP2 Assets PTE Ltd. (Temasek trust Asset Management) (5.5%). The company follows a cluster-based approach, with 571 branches across 21 states and employee count of 10,894 at FYE26.

Filed by India Ratings, page 6.

Aye Finance Q1 FY27: Profit Up 144% While Approval Rates Fell From 55% to 45%

At a glance

Aye Finance Limited reported revenue of ₹477 crore for the quarter ended June 30, 2026, up 17.7% from ₹405 crore a year earlier and down from ₹515 crore in the March quarter. Net profit came in at ₹74.5 crore against ₹30.6 crore in the year-ago quarter — a 144% increase — and against ₹86 crore in the preceding quarter. EPS was ₹3.02 versus ₹1.60 a year ago.

Operating profit for the quarter was ₹222 crore, against ₹163 crore a year earlier. Profit before tax was ₹97 crore. Finance costs were ₹131 crore, marginally above the ₹126 crore of the year-ago quarter despite a materially larger book.

Management reported assets under management of ₹7,324 crore, up 28% year-on-year and 4% sequentially from ₹7,044 crore at March 2026. Disbursements for the quarter were ₹1,219 crore, up 22% year-on-year, which management described as its strongest ever first-quarter disbursement performance. GNPA stood at 4.49%, improving 28 basis points sequentially, and credit cost moderated to 4.01%, down 29 basis points. Management stated that asset quality has improved for six consecutive quarters.

The company operates 571 branches across 18 states and 3 union territories, serving roughly 6.7 lakh active customers, with no new branches opened during the quarter. India Ratings upgraded the long-term rating to IND A+ in June 2026.

One number frames the quarter better than the profit line: management disclosed that the share of loan applications approved has fallen from roughly 55% to roughly 45% — while new borrower additions rose 38%. What the company does with a book that is getting harder to enter is the rest of this entry.

Introduction

Aye Finance Limited was incorporated in 1993 and obtained its NBFC certificate of registration from the RBI in 2014. It is a Middle Layer NBFC (NBFC-ML) headquartered in Delhi, with its corporate office in Gurugram, lending to micro-scale MSMEs across India.

The company listed on the NSE and BSE on February 16, 2026, through an IPO of 7,82,94,571 equity shares at ₹129 per share, comprising a fresh issue of 5,50,38,759 shares and an offer for sale of 2,32,55,812 shares. Net proceeds from the fresh issue were ₹672.24 crore. As of June 30, 2026, the company reports those proceeds as fully utilised toward augmenting its capital base, with no deviation — a position confirmed in a Crisil monitoring agency report filed for the quarter.

Its investor register reads like a list of people who arrived early: Elevation Capital, LGT Capital Invest, Alpha Wave, CapitalG, British International Investment, A91 Emerging Fund, and Temasek Trust Asset Management, several of whom still sit above 5%.

The year since listing has been busy at the top of the house. In April 2026 the board approved a CFO transition, with Sovan Satyaprakash resigning as interim CFO and Gaurav Seth appointed effective April 28, 2026; MSKA & Associates were appointed statutory auditors for three years. In June 2026, India Ratings upgraded the long-term rating from IND A to IND A+ (Stable) and the commercial paper rating from IND A1 to IND A1+. ICRA had earlier, in November 2025, assigned [ICRA]A (Stable) to a ₹400-crore NCD programme and reaffirmed the same rating on enhanced long-term bank facilities of ₹650 crore.

The funding machine has not slowed. The board approved NCD issuance of up to ₹4,000 crore and fixed the AGM for September 1, 2026; ₹140 crore of NCDs were allotted to FMO on June 25, 2026; and a further private placement of NCDs up to ₹220 crore at 9.75% for 24 months was approved days after the results.

Business model

Aye Finance lends small amounts of money to people whose businesses do not have paperwork. The average ticket size on disbursement is ₹1.7 lakh. The customer is a power loom operator, a lac-bangle maker, a dairy farmer, a tailor, a grocery shop, an iron works — the company has built underwriting methodologies around more than 70 such business clusters in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities.

The product suite is three-legged. Hypothecation loans — lending against working assets — account for 76.7% of AUM across 6,17,056 active loans, average ticket ₹1.5 lakh. Saral Property Loans are 21.8% across 42,003 loans, average ticket ₹4.9 lakh. LAP is 1.5% across 10,202 loans. Every loan is a business loan; none is for consumption.

The underwriting is where the model earns its keep, because the usual inputs simply do not exist. Management stated that only about 10–20% of its customers' transactions run through UPI or QR, with the rest largely cash — so bank-statement underwriting is off the table, and assessment runs on cluster-based alternate data instead. 32% of underwriting uses AI/ML scores; 68% runs on cluster methodology. Roughly 95% of customers own their residence or business premises or both, and the company requires a permanent business setup of at least two years.

The distribution is described as "phygital," a word that would be insufferable if the branch numbers didn't back it: 571 branches, 10,891 employees, 100% in-house origination, 100% cashless disbursement, and 95.84% of customers activated on NACH. Field collections are also entirely in-house, organised across three tiers — digital bots and predictive bounce models, then feet-on-street from the branch network, then a dedicated legal unit for NPA recoveries.

Geographically, AUM concentrates in Bihar (17%), Uttar Pradesh (15%), Rajasthan (11%) and Maharashtra (7%), with Madhya Pradesh and others making up the balance. By industry, trading is 50.8% of AUM as of June 2026, livestock rearing 24.9%, service and jobwork 13.8%, and manufacturing and others 10.4% — a mix that has shifted steadily away from livestock, which was 33.1% in March 2024.

The company also owns 100% of FAME, a Section 8 not-for-profit running CSR livelihood programmes, which is not consolidated because the company states its objective is not to obtain economic benefits from it.

Quarterly results, balance sheet, cash flow, ratios, shareholding and the filings themselves are on the full page for Aye Finance Limited.

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