Paytm Q2 result: Loss widens to Rs 473 crore on account of hiked payment processing charges

New Delhi: Financial technology firm Paytm’s parent One 97 Communications on Saturday reported widening of consolidated loss to about Rs 473 crore in the second quarter ended September 2021, mainly on account of an 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. Its consolidated total income increased by 49.6 percent to Rs 1,086.4 crore during the reported quarter from Rs 663.9 crore in the corresponding period of FY'21. “We have improved our expenses, with continued and increased investments in technology and merchant base expansion. Clearly, the monetisation and focus on non-UPI business is showing up in our results and costs. We are committed to innovation and continued investments in India’s payment and financial services inclusion,” a Paytm spokesperson said. Paytm expense of payment processing charges increased by 36 percent to Rs 670 crore during the reported quarter from Rs 492.4 crore in the same period of 2020-21. The employee benefits expense was up 35 percent to Rs 386.5 crore from Rs 286.2 crore while company’s expense in software, cloud and data centre increased by 56.5 percent to Rs 112.9 crore from Rs 72.1 crore during the period under review. “Our focus remains on continued customer and merchant expansion, and strengthening our business capabilities to cash in on the opportunities presented by the Indian internet ecosystem and rapid adoption of financial services,” the spokesperson said. Paytm ’s gross merchandise value (GMV) in the second quarter more than doubled to Rs 1,95,600 crore from Rs 94,700 crore in the corresponding quarter of 2020-21. The company’s average monthly transacting users (MTU) during the reported quarter increased by 33 percent on a year-on-year (YOY) basis to 5.74 million, Paytm said in a statement. The revenue from payments and financial services grew 69 percent YoY basis to Rs 8,42.6 crore while commerce and cloud services revenue grew by 47 percent on a Y-o-Y basis to Rs 2,43.8 crore, the statement said. The company said that the number of loans disbursal grew by 714 percent on YoY to over 28 lakh during the reported quarter. “The lending business continued to show strong growth as a result of the rapid scale-up of all of the company’s lending products, including Postpaid (Buy-Now-Pay-Later), consumer loans and merchant loans. The company’s financial institution partners disbursed around 1.3 million loans in October 2021, a 472 percent increase in numbers of loans disbursed YoY and aggregating to a total disbursal of Rs 627 crore,” the company said. In value terms, the disbursal increased by 418 percent in value terms, according to the statement. Paytm said that its merchant base grew to 2.3 crore during the reported quarter from 1.85 crore in the second quarter of financial year 2021. Shares of the company closed at Rs 1,781.15 apiece, down by 0.86 per cent on the BSE on Friday.