Paytm should be benchmarked against Bajaj Finance: Vijay Shekhar Sharma

Paytm should be benchmarked against non-banking finance company Bajaj Finance, said founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma claiming that in less than three years of offering credit on its platform, Paytm now does more loans than Bajaj.

"The success of payments was that the ticket size was Rs 200. The success of credit in this country would be when somebody can do the credit of the size we are giving. Rather than saying ticket size you should talk about the quality of credit," said Sharma while speaking at the India Digital Summit.

"The credit business, we should be benchmarked against only one guy that is Bajaj and we should be looked at for the scale we deliver in terms of total value and the quality of loans, " he added.

The period being referred to by Sharma wasn't immediately clear because the last reported data suggest Paytm was behind Bajaj with 4.4 million loans disbursed during the December quarter.

Bajaj Finance on the other hand recorded 7.4 million loans during the quarter under review.

Unlike Bajaj which is an NBFC, Paytm offers credit in tie up with lending partners.

According to Sharma, the average ticket size of loans at Paytm is around Rs 4,000-5,000.

Paytm which got listed on the stock exchange last year had a rough landing with its stock crashing 27.25%, the biggest ever fall in a decade for any scrip on listing day.

Its shares continue to be in a downward spiral. For instance, shares of Paytm parent One97 Communications fell more than 2 percent to a 52-week low on January 10 after Macquarie Securities India suggested that the company’s future earnings growth may be worse than its previous forecast.

The brokerage firm slashed its price target for the stock by 25% to Rs 900 from Rs 1,200 earlier, implying a further downside of 28 percent from the January 7 closing. Macquarie retained its ‘underperform’ rating on the stock.