Paytm suffers Big jolt, Its UPI Market Share declines for Fourth Straight Month

Payment services company Paytm, which has been facing difficulties for the last few months, has seen its share in Unified Payments Interface (UPI) transactions decline for the fourth consecutive month. Paytm’s share in total UPI transactions declined to 8.1 percent in May. In January, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had ordered the closure of Paytm’s banking unit Paytm Payments Bank Limited (PPBL). This was a big blow to Paytm. Since then there has been a big decline in the company’s shares.

Paytm has no control over PPBL. However, the company’s founder and chief executive officer, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, has a stake in it. Workers may also be laid off in Paytm soon. The company has said that it will cut its non-core assets. In the fourth quarter of the last financial year, the revenue of One 97 Communications, which runs Paytm, declined by 2.6 percent for the first time since its listing. The company’s revenue was approximately $22.7 billion.

UPI transactions have created a record in May. Last month, there were 14.04 billion UPI transactions whose value was approximately $20.45 trillion. This is an increase of six percent in terms of volume and four percent in value as compared to April. According to National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) data, this is a growth of about 49 percent in volume and about 39 percent in value compared to the same month last year. These are the highest figures in volume and value since the launch of UPI eight years ago. Fastag transactions increased by six percent to 34.7 crore in May. Last month, the value of Fastag transactions increased to Rs 5,908 crore. However, Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AePS) transactions declined by four percent in May to about nine crore.

Digital payments have increased rapidly since the introduction of UPI. With this, users can easily transfer payments from their smartphones. According to RBI data, the value of transactions done through UPI has increased by about 137 percent in the last two years to about Rs 200 lakh crore. UPI is also being expanded abroad. This service has been launched in some countries including Sri Lanka and Mauritius.