PayU India revenue for FY18 almost doubles

Naspers-owned PayU Payments Pvt. Ltd almost doubled its revenue to Rs 588 crore for the financial year ended March 2018, according to documents filed with the ministry of corporate affairs. Lat year, the online payments company had clocked a turnover of Rs 306 crore.
 
India is PayU’s largest global market, accounting for more than half of the payment transactions among the 16 countries it has a presence in, according to an interim report by South African media conglomerate Naspers published earlier this month.

PayU processed transactions worth over $14 billion according to the report, which captured data for six months to September 2018.

Focused primarily on being a merchant payment gateway, PayU is now intent on growing its consumer business, through its investments in multiple digital lending platforms including Zestmoney and PaySense. PayU also launched payday loan product, LazyPay, 18 months back. The company also received its NBFC licence in September this year, to propel its consumer lending business.

In an earlier email exchange, managing director of PayU, Jitendra Gupta, had said that the company was investing in credit business in high growth markets. “Credit will continue to remain a big focus – at PayU we would like to simplify credit for consumers and increase access of credit to the underbanked population,” said Gupta, adding that revenues from this line of business will make up half of PayU’s earnings in the next three to four years.

During Naspers Global Roundtable held in India earlier this year, CEO Bob Van Dijk had said that fin-tech will continue to be a key area of focus, apart from ed-tech. The conglomerate recently led Byju’s latest funding round, which values the ed-tech company at $3.29 billion.

PayU had acquired payment gateway provider Citrus in 2016 to grow its India business. Over 400,000 merchants in India use PayU’s payment gateway for their businesses, claims the company.