Digital payments and financial services firm Paytm has claimed that large merchants of its competitors are now switching to its platform and it is seeing a big opportunity in capturing mid-level market and startup community with its payment products, a top official said during earnings call of the company.
Paytm Chairman and Managing Director Vijay Shekhar Sharma said the company is one of the largest ''acquiring side partners'' for all payment networks be it Visa, Master and PCI, Amex, UPI etc and that is the reason large corporates including Flipkart and others are using Paytm payments solution.
''Some of the recent trends that we are seeing that there are even the large merchants who are starting with Paytm... These are partners who were exclusive with a competitor for many, many years. They are just sort of switching lock, stock and barrel to Paytm and I think the next big opportunity for us here is to continue our penetration in the mid market and the startup community,'' Paytm Group CFO and President Madhur Deora said during the call on Saturday evening.
One 97 Communications, which operates under Paytm brand name, on Saturday reported widening of consolidated loss to about Rs 473 crore in the second quarter ended September 30, 2021 mainly on account of increase in payment processing charges.
The company had posted a loss of Rs 436.7 crore in the same quarter a year ago, according to an exchange filing.
The consolidated total income of Paytm increased around 64 per cent to Rs 1,086.4 crore during the reported quarter from Rs 663.9 crore in the corresponding quarter of 2020-21.
''There is a growth in payments revenue and profitability. This is due to growth of payment volumes from non-UPI instruments. We are seeing recovery of high-margin commerce business, and growth of cloud business. We are seeing increase of financial services revenue driven by the huge ramp up in lending, ''Deora said.
He said that Paytm has large commerce business around ticketing, and that was heavily impacted due to COVID-19.
''That is starting to recover, and that's why we are seeing strong year-on-year growth as well as Q-o-Q growth. Our device merchant base has expended by 10 lakh in the last 12 months. We started this business a couple of years ago,'' Deora said.
He said growth in Paytm payments device is strategically important because device merchants continue to show higher retention and higher average spends.
''Four per cent of our device merchants have already taken a loan through our platform, where this is a merchant loan programme... This business is accelerating,'' Deora said.
(With inputs from PTI)
