Piramal Finance shares rise nearly 4% as Q2 profit jumps 67%

Piramal Finance shares climbed nearly 4% to an intraday high of Rs 2,018 on the NSE on Wednesday, October 21, after the lender reported a 67% year-on-year rise in second-quarter FY2027 net profit to Rs 545 crore. Economic Times Markets reported the earnings figures and share-price move, citing the company’s exchange filing.

Profit was Rs 327 crore in the corresponding quarter a year earlier. Net interest income increased 35% to Rs 1,530 crore, while profit after tax for the first half of FY2027 reached Rs 1,006 crore.

The intraday gain came after a 9.57% decline over the preceding month. The stock was nevertheless up 22.07% for the calendar year at the reported snapshot; these figures are not a closing-price update.

Retail lending drives expansion

Assets under management rose 24% year-on-year to Rs 1.13 lakh crore. The company’s growth AUM—which excludes its discontinued legacy business—increased 30%.

Retail AUM grew 30% to Rs 97,462 crore, while wholesale AUM rose 24% to Rs 13,978 crore. Retail disbursements increased 34% to Rs 14,646 crore, pointing to a larger flow of new lending alongside the expansion in the managed loan portfolio.

The lender reported a network of 838 branches across 621 cities in 25 states. Its customer base increased 26% to 6.5 million.

Chairman Anand Piramal said the quarter marked five years since the DHFL merger. He described the company’s strategy as expanding access to formal credit through a combination of its branch network, technology and artificial intelligence.

Capital raise and lower cost ratios

The company reported a Rs 3,850 crore capital-raising exercise comprising a Rs 2,100 crore qualified institutional placement and a preferential allotment of Rs 1,750 crore in warrants to the promoter group. It said the exercise would support further retail-led growth.

Its cost of borrowing held steady quarter-on-quarter at 8.79%. The company said its incremental cost of long-term debt had declined to 8.46% in the first half of FY2027, from 8.67% in the second half of FY2026, following a credit-rating upgrade in FY2026.

The cost-to-income ratio fell to 52.1%, compared with 61.2% in Q2 FY2026. Within the growth business, return on AUM improved to 2.0% from 1.7%, and operating expenses as a share of AUM declined to 3.2% from 3.6%. Growth-business credit cost remained stable at 1.5%, with profit before tax of Rs 538 crore.

Piramal Finance reported net worth of Rs 31,180 crore and cash and equivalents of Rs 6,899 crore. Its AUM-to-equity ratio was 3.6 times and its average liquidity coverage ratio was 442%. The company also said its asset-liability maturity profile had positive gaps across all time buckets.

AI moves into routine operations

Piramal Finance said it was extending generative-AI use through Piramal.ai beyond pilot projects into everyday business operations. It attributed improvements in productivity, customer experience and decision-making to that integration.

Monthly collections described by the company as “hands-free” reached Rs 754 crore in Q2 FY2027, against Rs 300 crore a year earlier. The company linked the increase to wider AI use in collections; the figures do not, on their own, isolate AI’s contribution from other changes in the business.

Dinesh Kumar Khara joins the board

The lender also announced the appointment of former State Bank of India chairman Dinesh Kumar Khara as an independent director for five years, effective October 19, 2026.

Piramal said Khara’s banking experience and understanding of financial services would support the company’s expansion in formal credit.