Focus is On Payments and Lending Products: Paytm

One97 Communications Ltd, which operates under the Paytm brand, will sharpen its focus on payments and distribution of lending products, founder and chief executive Vijay Shekhar Sharma told shareholders, even as he reiterated the company's target to turn an operating profit by September next year.

Paytm's core business model is to acquire consumers and merchants for payments services, and upselling them financial services, by leveraging distribution, collections, transactional and behavioural insights, he wrote in a letter to shareholders in its first annual report as a listed company.

Sharma added that its focus continued to be on buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) offerings and helping financial partners leverage credit distribution through mobile payments.


"We have sharpened our focus on payments and distribution of lending products and have prioritised these businesses in our resource allocation ... Our focus is also on showing how creditors can leverage this mobile payments relationship for lending. BNPL, which allows our partner financial institutions to issue credit to consumers at the point of sale, has become a consumer favourite," Sharma wrote.

He said the company continued to be on track to achieve operating profitability by September 2023. On Thursday, the shares ended 0.28% higher at ₹715.65 on the BSE. The Noida-based company's IPO price was ₹2,150 a share.

"We are seeing excellent momentum in our businesses and are on track to achieve operating profitability (Ebitda before ESOP cost) by the quarter ending September 2023," said Sharma.

For the fiscal year ended March 31, 2022, One97 reported a consolidated loss of ₹2,396.4 crore, compared with ₹1,701 crore the year before.

Consolidated revenue, however, grew 65% to ₹5,264.3 crore from ₹3,186.8 crore in fiscal 2021, it informed stock exchanges earlier this year. Revenue from operations rose almost 78% to ₹4,974.2 crore. Expenses for FY22 totalled ₹7,601.1 crore.