Paytm hits annual loan disbursal run rate of nearly $3 billion in Q1

For Q1, it disbursed 8.5 million loans – up 492% from the year-ago period – worth $703 million (or Rs 5,554 crore), the company said while updating its operating performance at the exchanges.

For the previous quarter, ending March 31, 2022, Paytm had disbursed 6.5 million loans worth $447.4 million (or roughly Rs 3,553 crore).

“The rapid growth of our lending products brings us an attractive profit pool. We are also seeing an increase in the average ticket size due to the scale-up of the personal loans business in particular,” it said.

Paytm’s growth in the lending business comes as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has increased scrutiny towards digital lending practices and recently barred prepaid payment instruments from loading credit lines.

The central bank is also expected to come out with digital lending guidelines to further regulate the sector.

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Earlier this year, Paytm said it disbursed 15.2 million loans in FY22, a more than five-fold growth from FY21 when the total loans disbursed stood at 2.6 million.

Paytm also said it deployed 3.8 million new point of sale devices in the June quarter and the active monthly users stood at 74.8 million.

The growth in metrics comes even as One97 Communications’ stock price is trading 67% lower from its IPO price of Rs 2,150 per share.

Shares of One97 Communications’ were trading at Rs 703.5 apiece by Monday afternoon.

The company also said its payment value of transactions to merchants also grew.

“The total merchant GMV (gross merchandise value) processed through our platform for the quarter ending June 2022 aggregated to approximately Rs 2.96 lakh crore ($37 billion), marking a year-on-year growth of 101%,” the company said.