Paytm says loans grew 449% in April

MUMBAI: One97 Communications, the parent of Paytm, has said that it disbursed 26.4 lakh loans in April 2022, an increase of 449%, over 4.8 lakh in the same month last year. The loans disbursed grew 749% to Rs 1,657 crore in value terms from Rs 195 crore in April 2021. The company said that its offline payments, mobile app user engagement, and merchant payment volumes also rose.
The disclosures come ahead of the financial results for the fourth quarter on May 20. The figures for April 2022 consider the impact of RBI’s directive barring Paytm Payments Bank from onboarding new customers on March 12 until it gives the go-ahead after an audit by an information technology expert.
Paytm’s lending business involves disbursing loans on behalf of other banks and finance companies for which it earns a fee. The company said that it saw an increase in average ticket size due to the scale-up of the personal loans business.
The total merchant GMV (gross merchandise value) processed through Paytm’s platform during April 2022 aggregated to approximately Rs 0.95 lakh crore, marking a year-on-year growth of 102%. The company said that the monthly transacting users of the superapp, which provides everything from money transfers, bill payments, ticket purchases and booking vaccine slots, grew 44% year on year to 7.3 crore in April 2022.
The company has deployed 32 lakh QR codes, QR payment sound boxes, and card swipe machines in merchant outlets. “With an average rate of 300,000 deployments per month, we expect this growth to contribute to a rise in the number of merchants eligible for loans,” the company said.
The total loans disbursed by lenders on Paytm include both to consumers and merchants but exclude the number and the value of loans sourced by third parties through advertising on Paytm and aggregation of EMIs on the card swipe machines.