Paytm loan disbursals rise three-fold to Rs 12,554 crore in March quarter

While updating the exchanges about its operational performance, One97 Communications said it had disbursed Rs 4,468 crore in loans in March alone, higher than what it clocked in the March quarter a year earlier. The company disbursed 4.1 million loans this March, through partners.

In the March quarter a year earlier, the company had reported total loan disbursals of Rs 3,553 crore.

This comes at a time when rival PhonePe has started pilots to offer merchant loans on its platform through partners. The company’s cofounder and chief executive, Sameer Nigam, confirmed the development to ET.

Nigam also said that the company was looking to apply for a non-banking finance company (NBFC) licence.

For Paytm, average monthly transacting users (MTU) stood at 90 million for the March quarter, up 27% year-on-year, averaging figures for the three months that ended in March 2023.

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Subscription devices such as Soundbox and point-of-sale (PoS) machines reached 6.8 million as of March 2023, an increase of 1 million for the quarter, the company said. “With our subscription as a service model, the strong adoption of devices drives subscription revenues and higher payment volumes, while increasing the funnel for our merchant loan distribution,” the stock filing stated.

The company had distributed 2.9 million Soundbox devices as of March 2022.

Total payment value (TPV) processed by merchants on the platform stood at Rs 3.62 lakh crore for the quarter ended March 2023, amounting to 40% year-on-year growth, it added.

Total merchant TPV stood at Rs 2.59 lakh crore for Paytm in the March quarter a year earlier.

“Our focus over the past few quarters continues to be on payment volumes that generate profitability for us, either through net payments margin or from direct upsell potential,” said One97 Communications.