Paytm Committed To Integrating AI In Its Core Payment Biz: Vijay Shekhar Sharma

Fintech giant Paytm is fully committed to integrating artificial intelligence (AI) in its core payment business, founder and chief executive Vijay Shekhar Sharma said.

At the company’s 24th annual general meeting, Sharma said that Paytm is leveraging AI to develop new technologies, and has already integrated the technology across all its business segments.

“Some technologies being built are so good, if you fork it out, it could become a standalone business vertical,” Sharma said.

However, at the moment, Paytm will focus on its core payment business and cross-selling financial services, as the company seeks to become profitable, Sharma added.

The Paytm chief also predicted that AI will significantly impact every industry and early adopters will have the first mover advantage.

Sharma said that in the next five years, India will be a leader in financial technology and will have the obligation to lead the AI technology.

On that note, he also acknowledged that there is a demand and forward-looking expectation on Paytm to be able to bring an AI-powered risk management committee.

“Risk management options, credit risk, fraud risk, future underwriting of insurance will all be led by AI. The generative AI interaction with financial services will be underwriting,” he said in the meeting.

This meeting was held a month after the company reported its first quarter results. The listed fintech major’s consolidated net loss widened 134% year-on-year to INR 840.1 Cr in the June quarter of FY25 as compared to INR 358.4 Cr, a year ago.

Meanwhile, its quarterly revenue from operations also declined 36% to INR 1,502 Cr from INR 2,342 Cr, in the previous year.

However, Paytm cut its overall spending by 11.5% YoY to INR 2,476.4 Cr in Q1 FY25 from INR 2800 Cr in the year-ago quarter.

The company, as per reports, shrinked its employee headcount by around 5,000 to 6,300, or around 15-20% of the total workforce to save costs of INR 400-500 Cr, earlier this year.

Prior to that, Paytm laid off employees from some departments by as much as 20%, as part of its annual performance review, in March.

In March, too, there were reports which said Paytm had directed “some departments… to reduce their team size by as much as 20%.” 

Sharma highlighted that costs have been saved so far through various measures, and the company is planning to further cut costs with the help of AI. The company is paying many cloud service providers and third party service providers to boost the enterprise softwares.

The company has seen multiple leadership exits through the year, and Sharma took charge of Paytm in the month of May, amid a major restructuring move at the fintech giant.

On the grounds of the company’s leadership, he said that the senior leadership team is expanding in areas core to payment and financial services, which can be anticipated in the coming quarters.

The shares of the fintech juggernaut stood at INR 659.20 on the BSE as of 01:06 PM in the intraday trading today (September 12), marking a 1.2% decline compared to the previous close of INR 667.

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