 "Paytm")
Shares of One97 Communications, which owns the fintech company Paytm, were locked at the 10 per cent upper circuit at Rs 381.20 on the BSE in Friday's intra-day trades, on the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) push for digital payments to include integration of UPI Lite into the e-mandate framework to facilitate small-value transactions and allow automatic wallet replenishment when balances fall below set thresholds.
A combined 7.5 million equity shares changed hands, and there were pending buy orders for a combined nearly 400,000 shares on the NSE and BSE, data shows as of 12:10 pm.
“To encourage wider adoption of UPI Lite, it is now proposed to bring it under the e-mandate framework by introducing a facility for customers to automatically replenish their UPI Lite wallets if the balance goes below the threshold limit set by them. This will further enhance the ease of making small value digital payments,” the RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said in statement.
UPI Lite was introduced in September 2022 to enable small value payments in a quick and seamless manner through an on-device wallet.
This will boost digital payments and reduce transaction costs, thereby enhancing operational efficiency and cash flow management for MSMEs, said Ritesh Jain, Co-Founder of Flexiloans.com
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However, according to a Bloomberg report, Paytm’s share of the unified payments interface (UPI) market in India fell for a fourth straight month as the fintech pioneer struggled to recover from a regulatory setback. Paytm accounted for 8.1 per cent of total UPI transactions in May, down from 13 per cent in January, according to data released by the National Payments Corporation of India.
Paytm is India's leading mobile payments and financial services distribution company. Pioneer of the mobile QR payments revolution in India, Paytm builds technologies that help small businesses with payments and commerce.
Paytm is in discussion with NPCI for conformation of signing up new UPI consumers via its TPAP app (third party application provider). Management guided that Q1 will see full impact of RBI embargo with negative adj EBITDA of Rs 500-600 crore (only last 2 months of Q4 were impacted).
Analysts at JM Financial Institutional Securities said they remain watchful of the closure of small ticket post-paid business (which acted as a funnel for high ticket PLs) and pivot towards high ticket lending thereof. Although Paytm has found alternatives for PPBL, the brokerage firm believes on boarding of new customers and revival of high margin products in payments business is contingent on regulatory approvals, seamless migration of accounts and smooth integration. Only regaining MTU (down from 104mn in Jan’24 to 80mn in Apr’24 vs 90mn in Mar’23) will support declining revenue and profitability, which will take time, analysts said in March quarter (Q4FY24) result update.
