Paytm Records 1.2 Bn Monthly Transactions, 15% Monthly Growth

India’s digital payments unicorn Paytm has announced that it recorded 1.2 Bn monthly transactions in February across its unified payments interface (UPI), wallet, cards and net-banking payment methods. The company claimed that it witnessed a 15% month-on-month (MoM) growth in transactions. 

In a release, Paytm said that its Paytm for Business app is being used by 17 Mn merchants across 99% of the pin codes in India. As part of the company’s push for the Indian government’s ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ mission, Paytm said it trained 20 lakh merchants over 6 lakh villages in India, to use digital modes of payment. 

“We have been promoting all digital payment methods giving multiple-choices to consumers that have helped us in consolidating our leadership position. In fact, a large percentage of our users who started their digital journey with Paytm, have now adopted & embraced our financial services,” said Narendra Yadav, vice president at Paytm. 

The company, which claims to have 150 Mn monthly active users (MAUs), has several financial services products, namely Paytm Payments Bank, Paytm Money for democratising wealth creation, Paytm Insurance, Paytm Postpaid, Paytm Credit Cards and other lending products, besides its core digital payments product. 

While Paytm claimed the top market share in mobile payments to merchants, it lags behind rivals PhonePe and Google Pay in the share of UPI transactions. As of January, PhonePe leads the market share for UPI payments at 43% or 968.72 Mn, followed by Google Pay with 41% or 853.53 Mn transactions. Paytm recorded 281.18 Mn UPI transactions in January.

Last month, it was reported that the company was looking to raise $400 Mn from Swiss multinational investment bank UBS Group AG. 

In the fiscal year 2019-20 (FY20), Paytm saw its loss fall by 28%,  from INR 3,954 C to INR 2,833 Cr, as the company reduced its expenses significantly in the last fiscal. 

One97 managed to cut expenses by 19% from INR 7,254 Cr to INR 5,861 Cr in FY2020, according to the regulatory filings sourced from business intelligence firm Tofler.

The company’s revenue for this period has also dropped by a marginal 1% from INR 3,391 Cr to INR 3,350 Cr, however, its share from operations marginally increased from INR 3,049 Cr in FY2019 to INR 3,115 Cr FY2020.

Recently, expressing his views on WhatsApp’s contentious privacy policy, Paytm CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma had said that big tech companies need to stop treating India as a ‘third world market’.