UPI Crosses 10 Billion Payments; Paytm Disbursed Rs. 5,517 Crore in Loans

Fintech major Paytm on Tuesday said it disbursed $667 million (Rs. 5,517 crore) loans through its platform and deployed 87 lakh devices for offline payments in August. 

The Vijay Shekhar Sharma-led fintech platform said in a regulatory filing that on an average 9.4 crore users transacted through Paytm monthly during July and August this year, which was 20 percent higher than the average number of users recorded during the same period last year.

“Our loan distribution business (in partnership with our lender partners) continues to gain scale with disbursements of Rs. 10,710 crore (y-o-y growth of 137 percent) and 88 lakh loans (y-o-y growth of 47 percent) disbursed in quarter to date for the month of July and August 2023 combined, through the Paytm platform,” the company shared in its operating performance report for August.

The number of merchants paying subscription for payment devices stood at 87 lakh as of August 2023, which is an increase of 42 lakh devices year-on-year, Paytm added.

Merchant Payment Volumes (GMV) for the Antfin-backed firm stood at Rs. 3 lakh crore during July and August, registering an on-year growth of 43 percent.

Meanwhile, Unified Payments Interface (UPI) transactions crossed 10 billion mark in August, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) said. 

NPCI is an umbrella organisation for all retail payment systems in India. UPI is used for immediate money transfer through mobile devices round the clock.

“Drumroll please! UPI has just shattered records with an astonishing 10 billion plus transactions. Join us in celebrating this incredible milestone and the power of digital payments. Let’s keep the momentum going and continue to revolutionize the way we make transactions with UPI!,” NPCI said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

According to the NPCI data, the UPI transactions on August 30 stood at 10.24 billion. In value terms, the transaction had totalled Rs. 15,18,456.4 crore.

The number of UPI transactions in July was 9.96 billion (996.4 crore), up from 9.33 billion in June. In value terms, the transactions totalled Rs. 15,33,645.20 crore.

UPI (Unified Payment Interface) is an instant payment system that allows users to instantly transfer money to any bank account.