The Emerging 100: BLS International’s local playbook, global outlook

IN THE EARLY 2000S, Delhi-based Diwakar Aggarwal, who was in the manufacturing business, was trying for a visa to a European country. Like any visa seeker, he faced long queues and harrowing processing at the embassy. The moment of crisis is when the businessman in Diwakar Aggarwal identified an opportunity: visa processing and consulting, a segment that lacked a playbook in India.

Thus, in 2005, BLS International Services Ltd was born. But the company didn’t plunge headfirst into visa and consular services. Instead, it tested the waters by offering services such as applicants’ background verification and crowd management at embassies. Among the first clients were the embassies of Greece and Portugal in Delhi, says Shikhar Aggarwal, joint managing director at BLS International, as he recalls his father’s early days in the business. “Although the volume was not that big, he ran these operations on the embassy premises, with some people.” But the numbers were not big enough to be profitable.

For volumes, the company tapped into the growing needs of Indian embassies as the local diaspora started spreading across the Middle East, Canada, and the U.S., among others.

Two decades later, BLS International now competes with VFS Global and CIBT, backed by private equity giants Blackstone and Kohlberg & Co., respectively.

By the time Aggarwal joined his father’s business in 2014, the industry had matured significantly compared to the early 2000s. He turned the focus back on driving more business from foreign governments. But the eligibility criteria posed a challenge when it came to bidding for some of the large tenders. To gain experience, the company started working with smaller Schengen visa countries. That led to the first big win: the Spanish global contract in 2016. “In December 2016, we won the contract. In 2017, we started deploying offices overnight,” Aggarwal says. Meanwhile, the company made its stock exchange debut in November 2016. “We grew from 20 countries to 40-plus countries, and in 2018-19, we won one or two more contracts,” he adds.

But then came the pandemic.

With international travel and visa processing coming to a halt, revenues dipped by 37.8% year-on-year, to ₹497 crore in FY21 from ₹799 crore in the previous fiscal. However, that proved to be a tiny blip given its growth trajectory in recent years. As the travel bug bit the post-pandemic world, BLS International, where the promoter and promoter group hold 70.39% stake, has bounced back with a three-year CAGR of 23.79% and trailing 12 months’ (TTM) net sales of ₹2,876 crore for FY26, according to data from Capitaline.

Today, the company lists over 46 governments worldwide as its clientele and has operations spanning across 70-plus countries. In February 2024, its subsidiary BLS E-Services, in which the promoter and promoter group hold 68.89% stake, also listed on the BSE and the NSE. The issue was oversubscribed more than 162 times across all categories. The parent company made approximately ₹300 crore from the listing. “The reason that we listed these companies separately was that the target was not to utilise the profit from one company for another company. We have been organically growing these companies, doing M&A in these sectors. So they are on the right track,” Aggarwal says.

Digital push

The group operates in two segments: visa and consular services, and the digital services business. The first involves visa-related administrative and non-discretionary tasks for government clients, and passport services, including issuance and replacement, document attestation, and document verification. This is a segment where contracts are, by nature, exclusive to a vendor. “Typically, the contract duration for the visa business is five to seven years. For example, we recently won some contracts with the U.S. government. Those are for 10 years,” says Aggarwal. In terms of volumes, he adds, the most-travelled countries, for instance, Spain, Italy, Germany, the U.S., and Portugal, and their governments are the company’s biggest clients.

The digital services business is a more India-specific function that it carries out through its other listed arm. For instance, BLS International offers business correspondent service, wherein it works with banks to provide last-mile banking solutions (opening bank accounts, money transfers, etc.) in rural and remote areas of India. The company took the acquisition route to this space: it acquired Starfin India in 2018 and Zero Mass in 2022.

Further, the company provides e-governance services, including establishing and running Aadhaar Seva Kendras (under the Unique Identification Authority of India), and PAN and Aadhaar registration touch-points, among others. The e-governance contracts are again tenured for five to seven years. Banking correspondent services are annuity contracts, renewed automatically. For other assisted e-services, such as insurance and ticketing, registration fees, transaction-based commissions, and service charges are levied.

A third of the company’s revenues come from visa and consular services, where the Ebitda margins are as high as 40.8% (9MFY26). Press Aggarwal on the marked profitability improvement in the visa and consular business from the teen figures of 14.8% in FY23, and he replies: cost-efficiency measures that were undertaken, new contracts, and utilisation of existing offices for expanded offerings have contributed big. With nearly ₹1,300 crore spent on acquisitions last year, the company sees the synergies trickling down in the current fiscal. “We had many value-added services for existing customers. We could cross-sell and up-sell.”

On the digital business side, while the acquisition of a controlling stake in Aadifidelis Solutions Pvt. Ltd — a loan distribution and processing company — and its affiliates in 2024, for an enterprise value of ₹190 crore, has led to its top-line growth, the profitability margin is down from 13.4% in FY23 to around 7% (9MFY26). As a loan disbursement partner, the company draws about 3% commission, while margins are around 3-4% of Ebitda. And hence, the dip in margin, Aggarwal clarifies. That said, the company sees headroom growth in both business segments, especially in counsellor services and e-governance for land record registration.

With personal and sensitive data such as biometrics and identity at the core of the business, technical expertise becomes crucial during the bidding process as these contracts involve foreign governments, says Aggarwal. “Security is paramount. Governments, before even awarding us a tender, will ensure that we are compliant with ISOs and GDPR. So, data is controlled by the government and held by them.”

Also, data purging policies ensure that it is automatically deleted after an application is processed. “We have ethical security measures. We have regular audits by the government, by us, by everyone. So, it’s a part of the industry norm. Otherwise, you’re not even eligible for these contracts,” Aggarwal adds.

The company uses AI and automation-based solutions, such as natural language processing and conversational and voice-based assistants, at its call centres to authenticate travel documents. The in-house IT team controls and manages the core application, even as the company works with partners worldwide, Aggarwal says. “Now it makes no sense to develop technologies that already exist. You can simply use SaaS-based software. So, while the base software is ours and we keep enhancing it, we also have tie-ups and partners across the world.”

Opportunity ahead

A recent research note from IDBI Capital Equity Research highlighted BLS International’s strong financial performance. Based on its latest results, the company’s consolidated revenue growth of 44% YoY in Q3 and 46% for the nine months, along with a rise in profit after tax by 33% and 36% for the same periods, means its revenue over nine months has already equalled the previous fiscal’s full-year revenue.

Valuing the stock at 20x FY27E EPS, the report dated February 9, 2026 reads, “A strong order pipeline, asset-light model, expanding global footprint, and continued technology investments, including AI-driven efficiencies, position BLS well for sustained 20–25% growth over the medium term, supported by healthy cash flows and a strong balance sheet.”

BLS International is positioning itself for significant organic business growth, with an estimated 20-25% in the next five years. This projection is supported by forthcoming renewal tenders in the visa services sector, valued at $1.5-2 billion, currently managed by competitors. BLS International is eligible to participate in such upcoming tenders. “If we can get a market share out of that, we can grow further. We are also thinking about acquisitions,” Aggarwal says. His confidence is bolstered by the fact that only 50% of the total visa and consular services market has opened for outsourcing. The number is expected to increase in the coming years. “Existing governments are outsourcing more products, more geographies, etc. So, there’s a lot of potential for the market to grow.”

While short-term factors like geopolitical developments and ongoing conflicts pose immediate challenges, Aggarwal maintains a bullish outlook. This optimism is driven by the post-Covid travel and tourism trend, which he believes is sustainable, evidenced by increased capital expenditure on new hotels and airlines ordering more aircraft. The future does look promising for BLS International.