Page 22 - Fintech Sector

Soon, make your card payments through Paytm and Pine Labs soundboxes

The company said the total deployment of all its soundboxes is pegged at 85 lakh devices in the market. Additionally, the company added that it deploys over 12 lakh soundboxes every quarter

In mutual fund foray, Zerodha plans to emulate its broking playbook

To offer passive direct plans, while relying on digital route for distribution

Fintech startup Khatabook lays off 42 employees to reorient business

Fintech startup Khatabook has laid off 42 employees, or 6 per cent of its total workforce, to reorient business in line with its targets, the company said on Friday. The company had a total workforce of 700 prior to the layoffs. "In-line with our profitability goals, we are reorienting some parts of our business which requires us to operate with a leaner team on certain business verticals," a Khatabook spokesperson said. "This restructuring has impacted 6 per cent of our 700 employees. All impacted employees have been provided with a separation package which covers 3 months of pay, stock vesting option, health insurance extension and other job search-related support," the spokesperson said. Khatabook -- valued at USD 600 million (about Rs 4,500 crore) after its previous funding round -- is backed by Sequoia Capital (now PeakXV Partners), Tencent, Tribe Capital, and Moore Strategic Ventures, among others. The company had raised USD 100 million (about Rs 743 crore) in the funding ro

Fintech loan disbursement rose 21% YoY in FY23: FACE-Equifax report

Number of loans disbursed increased 49%; delinquency rate fell

Alibaba's Antfin transfers 10.3% stake to Paytm chief Vijay Shekhar Sharma

Chinese e-commerce major Alibaba group firm Antfin has transferred its 10.3 per cent stake in One97 Communications to the fintech firm's founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma, according to a regulatory filing. The deal turns One97 Communications, which operates under Paytm brand name, into a majorly Indian-owned company from being majorly owned by Chinese entities. Antfin will continue to hold the economic rights of the stake that is being transferred to Sharma. "We, Antfin (Netherlands) Holding B.V., one of the shareholders of One 97 Communication Limited, hereby file the disclosure in the format prescribed under Regulation 29(2) of SEBI (Substantial Acquisition of Shares and Takeovers) Regulations, 2011, with respect to disposal of 65,335,101 equity shares of the Company..." the filing said on Wednesday. The transaction was completed on August 14, which brought the total stake of Antfin to 13.49 per cent from 23.79 per cent earlier, the filing said. The deal makes Sharma family t

Intuit executive Alex Chriss to become president and CEO of PayPal

Intuit executive Alex Chriss will become the president and CEO of digital payments company PayPal next month. Chriss will take over the CEO post from Dan Schulman, who told PayPal's board in February that he planned to retire at the end of the year. Schulman will stay on PayPal's board until its next annual shareholders meeting in May 2024. In January PayPal announced that it would cut about 7 per cent of its total workforce, or about 2,000 full-time workers, due to challenging macro-economic conditions. Chriss, who has worked at Intuit for 19 years, has served as executive vice president and general manager of Intuit's small business and self-employed group since January 2019. He led Intuit's USD 12 billion acquisition of Mailchimp in 2021. Other Intuit products include TurboTax and Credit Karma. Chriss will also join PayPal's board, effective September 27. PayPal Holdings Inc., which is based in San Jose, California, is the parent of Venmo, Xoom and Honey, among other brands. It

BharatPe to double its POS network in India over the next 12 months

As a part of the plan, it launched its new Android POS terminal, BharatPe Swipe Android

Protean, PayNearby partner for providing credit services on ONDC network

Protean eGov Technologies and fintech platform PayNearby have collaborated for providing credit services on the ONDC network for last-mile borrowers and MSMEs. Once launched, the marketplace will also allow for easy discovery of various lending products at affordable pricing, according to a statement. "In this partnership, Protean will serve as an ONDC technology service provider that facilitates availability of credit for last-mile borrowers across the country through PayNearby's well entrenched Distribution as a Service (DaaS) network," it said. Speaking to PTI, Protean eGov Managing Director and CEO Suresh Sethi said there are several people who are not digitally enabled to even get into the account aggregator framework and get credit against their data, or consent for it to be used. "We are looking at this as a sort of intervention which can leverage the physical network provided by PayNearby and the last mile agent can then provide an assisted service and onboarding people to

Indian fintech sector: A resilient green shoot of the start-up ecosystem

India maintained its position as the third-highest funded fintech industry globally, following the US and UK, similar to last year

Paytm rallies 12% as Vijay Shekhar Sharma buys 10.3% stake from Antfin

On closing of this transaction, Sharma's shareholding in Paytm (direct and indirect) will increase to 19.42 per cent, whereas Antfin's shareholding will reduce to 13.5 per cent

Enkash expects business to grow by 36% to Rs 250 crore this fiscal

Fintech firm Enkash expects its business to grow by 36 per cent to USD 30 million, about Rs 250 crore, in this fiscal on account of digitisation in small and medium business in the accounting segment, a senior official of the company said. Ascent Capital-backed Enkash founder Hemant Vishnoi told PTI the company focuses on spends management of small and medium enterprises that have over Rs 10 crore annual turnover and expects the customer base to double in the current fiscal. "We closed last financial year closer to USD 22 million revenue and we are targeting close to USD 30 million this year. We had a growth of 2.5 to 5 times on multiple business metrics," Vishnoi said. The company expects its new platform "Olympus", which combines payable, receivable and reconciliation in one suite, will be a key growth driver for the company. "We have closer to 10,000 customers and more than 250,000 businesses connected on our platform. We expect two-fold growth in terms of businesses on our ...

Paytm up 4% as loan disbursements more-than-double in July to Rs 5,194 cr

During the month of July, Paytm catered to 93 million average monthly transacting users (MTU), up 19 per cent year-on-year (YoY)

Elon Musk pursues financial services in wake of rivals' failed attempts

US tech companies have struggled in their attempts to take on banking behemoths, often scaling back their ambitions in the face of competition and protracted approval processes

Indian fintech start-up funding plunges 67% to $1.4 bn in 1st half of 2023

This decline in funding was largely due to the downward trend in early-stage investments, which plunged 81 per cent and 68 per cent from H1 2022 and H2 2022 respectively

More room for players in fintech space: Paytm CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma

Comments come after Jio Financial Services' entry into lending space

Paytm to generate free cash flow by year end, says CEO Vijay Shekhar

Fintech firm One97 Communications, which operates under the Paytm brand, expects to generate free cash flow by the end of this year, a top company official said on Saturday. Paytm founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma, in an earnings call, said that growth for the company in the June 2023 quarter came on account of expansion in payments, financial services and commerce business. "We are on our committed guidelines of becoming free cash flow positive by the year-end," Sharma said. Paytm has reported a narrowing of loss to Rs 358.4 crore in the first quarter ended June 30, 2023. The company had posted a loss of Rs 645.4 crore in the same period a year ago. Its revenue from operations increased by 39.4 per cent to Rs 2,341.6 crore during the reported quarter from Rs 1,679.6 crore in the June 2022 quarter. The company said its merchant payments volume (GMV) grew 37 per cent year-on-year to Rs 4.05 lakh crore in the April-June quarter of FY 2023-24. Sharing an update on the RBI's bar

RBI signals greater scrutiny of fintech industry amid funding drought

Fintechs will need to devote their attention to governance, compliance, business conduct, and adopting risk mitigation practices for long-term business stability

Sachin Bansal's fintech firm Navi lays off nearly 200 employees: Report

In addition to the layoffs, several individuals within the company have resigned over the past few months, including mid-to-senior level employees and leaders

Fibe eyes upskilling space for lending even as ed-tech faces crunch

The company, which averages around Rs 40 crore in monthly topline sales in the category, partners with upskilling platforms to lend credit to consumers

Fintech firm BharatPe appoints Pankaj Goel as chief technology officer

Fintech firm BharatPe Group has appointed former Razorpay senior executive Pankaj Goel as the chief technology officer. Prior to joining BharatPe, Pankaj was the head of payments engineering at Razorpay. He will report to BharatPe chief financial officer and interim CEO Nalin Negi, the company said in a statement on Wednesday. "With a seasoned engineering leader like Pankaj joining the team, we are confident that we will be able to build best-in-class fintech products that will further enable the next level of growth for the BharatPe Group of Companies," Negi said. Goel has held senior positions at various companies, including Intuit, Trilogy, and Sun Microsystems.