Paytm Upgrades Its Digital Payments Platform; Here’s What To Expect

Fintech major Paytm on Friday (March 24) announced the launch of its new and upgraded payments platform that is built on an indigenously developed tech stack. 

The revamped system will be able to handle up to 10 times the current scale and ‘significantly’ enhance the digital payments experience through quicker processing speed, better success rate and security.

As per the fintech platform, the new digital payments platform has been built in India from scratch and on top of tech solutions that are also supported in-house. Be it the operational risk or the fraud management system, the listed fintech giant claims to have built these facets of the business from the ground up. 

The company added that the new platform has a robust architecture that will purportedly promote sustainable growth of digital payments in the country. 

“… Today by making sure that every component of our technology is made in-house, we have proved that India can build world-class technology software of scale. We have built a new operational risk system and fraud management from the ground up, catering to India’s payments growth,” said founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma.

He added, “This platform will be able to scale to the next up to 10X payments in India. We are here to serve India with the technology made in India. We are proud that we are making this in India for the world.”

The announcement comes amid a spell of good news for the fintech player that has otherwise been bogged down by challenges ranging from regulatory issues to a plummeting stock price. 

While 2022 saw its share prices fall more than 60%, 2023 has brought some cheer for the company. While Paytm’s stock is up 8% in the past five trading sessions, its loan disbursals clinched a record high of 40 Lakh loans worth INR 4,158 Cr in February. 

Along the same lines, Paytm has also been witnessing a big uptick in key operational metrics, including gross merchandise volumes, monthly transacting users and device deployments. 

However, issues have largely cropped up from the executive end. Last week, it was reported that the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) was mulling amendments to its rules to bar startup founders, with rights akin to promoters, from owning shares under ESOP schemes. While Paytm was not named directly, any such move could have a direct bearing on the fintech giant. 

Besides, the month also saw the departure of Paytm’s company secretary and compliance officer Amit Khera while reports flew thick and thin of investors Ant Group and SoftBank looking to sell their stakes in Paytm. 

Amid all this, Paytm nearly halved its yearly loss to INR 392 Cr in Q3 FY23 while supposedly also achieving the target of EBITDA profitability, without ESOP cost, in the same quarter.

Shares of Paytm closed 0.51% lower at INR 619.30 on the BSE on Friday (March 24).

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