BENGALURU (Reuters) – Indian digital payments firm Paytm reported a 76% jump in second-quarter revenue, helped in part by a surge in loan growth, while the company reiterated that it would turn profitable by September 2023.
Paytm’s parent, One 97 Communications Ltd, said revenue rose to 19.14 billion Indian rupees ($233.81 million) in the July-September quarter from 10.86 billion rupees a year earlier.
Consolidated net loss widened to 5.71 billion rupees from a loss of 4.73 billion rupees a year earlier, as expenses related to employee benefits and payment processing charges surged, the company said in an exchange filing.
The revenue jump in the reported quarter was lower than the 88.5% increase Paytm posted in the first quarter.
Revenue from the company’s core business of payments services — consumers and merchants using the app and from device subscriptions — rose 55.6% in the second quarter to 11.73 billion rupees.
Its net payments margin, or payments revenue less processing costs, rose 15% to 4.43 billion rupees from the immediately previous quarter. Paytm’s average monthly transacting users rose 39% from a year earlier.
Revenue at the company’s fast-growing financial services business — primarily buy-now-pay-later, personal and merchant loans — nearly quadrupled to 3.49 billion rupees.
Loan disbursement surged to 73.13 billion rupees in the reported quarter, the company said last month.
The company said it does not have a “firm timeline” on when Paytm Payments Bank will be allowed to onboard new customers following a ban by India’s central bank in March.
The company added that the central bank’s observations were largely around strengthening of IT outsourcing processes and operational risk management.
($1 = 81.8600 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Anuran Sadhu and Juby Babu in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)