Paytm files FY23 annual report; CEO Sharma says company investing to build AI-based software stack

One97 Communications Limited, which owns the brand Paytm, India's leading payments and financial services company and the pioneer of QR and mobile payments, on Monday filed its annual report for 2022-23 with the exchanges.

The company's founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma has also written a letter to shareholders. Sharma spoke about Paytm pioneered mobile payments in India and led mass adoption with innovations like QR Codes and Soundbox.

“In India, we can expect 500 million payment consumers and 100 million merchants not very far in future. This is made possible by Paytm leading from the front, our government's agenda to drive Digital India and the regulator's encouragement to build an open scalable payment system. We are not only beneficiaries but also the biggest champions of government and regulator-driven Digital Public Infrastructure,” he wrote.

Now, Sharma has his eyes on the next big thing — Artificial General Intelligence.

In his letter to shareholders, Sharma mentioned that for India's Digital revolution after mobile payments, Paytm's next contribution will be – small mobile credit with high credit quality and fully compliant with the regulators' guidelines.

“Expectedly this requires sophisticated capabilities in AI and other technologies. I am very proud of our Advanced AI capabilities in use and how we are expanding. We are building an India scale AI system which will help various financial institutes in capturing possible risks and frauds, while also protecting them from new kinds of risks due to advancement in AI,” he wrote.

He further mentioned that Paytm is investing in AI with an eye on building Artificial General Intelligence software stack.

“We believe by building it in India we are not only making our country's tech capability, also creating something that could be leveraged outside India,” he wrote.

The company had earlier mentioned that it is gunning for cashflow positive as its next milestone.

“In my opinion, in the next three years you will see some worthy numbers and results of hard work put in by the team. Your company's team remains committed to serve India and build a long term profitable business,” said Sharma in his letter.

The company continues its sustained growth with revenue from operations increasing 61 per cent YoY to Rs 7,990 crore. For 2022-23, EBITDA before ESOP cost stood ₹(176) crore, a significant improvement of Rs 1,342 crore. Furthermore, the company has already achieved its operating profitability milestone in Q3-2022-23, much ahead of its September 2023 guidance.

In its annual report filed with the exchanges, the company said that this performance was driven by -- sustained growth in revenues on account of platform expansion and increased monetization; better profitability in the payments business as well as increased contribution of high growth, high margin businesses such as loan distribution; and disciplined cost management and better operating leverage.