QR everywhere, India’s largest tech IPO, then an RBI ban on the payments bank. The rebuild is cost, merchants and compliance.
- Founded
- 2010 (Paytm)
- IPO
- Nov 2021, $2.46B, ₹2,150/share
- RBI action
- PPBL to halt deposits/credits from 29 Feb 2024
- FY25 revenue
- ₹6,900 crore
- As of FY25
- FY26 revenue
- ₹8,437 crore; EBITDA ₹502 crore
- As of FY26 annual report
- UPI share
- ~7.9% (Aug 2026, ET citing NPCI-style data)
- As of Aug 2026
The beginning
One97 began before “Paytm” as a mobile content and recharge business. The Paytm wallet launched into a India that still paid cash for almost everything. Demonetisation in 2016 was an accelerant, not the original idea: QR and wallet use jumped as the country scrambled for cashless rails.
Vijay Shekhar Sharma remained the public founder through listing, the bank crisis, and the profitability turn. SoftBank, Ant Group and Berkshire Hathaway were among the famous pre-IPO names — and among those who took large mark-to-market hits when the stock collapsed after listing.
The problem
Consumers needed a simple way to pay merchants and recharge phones. Merchants needed a cheap way to accept digital money. Banks were not building consumer UX at startup speed. UPI later nationalised the rails — which both enabled Paytm and commoditised it.
The idea
Be the consumer super-app for money: wallet, then UPI, then merchant soundboxes/QR, then lending/insurance distribution. Own the merchant relationship with hardware (devices) so the app is not the only lock-in.
Early execution
November 2021 IPO at ₹2,150 was India’s largest internet listing at the time and a disastrous debut. The company then spent years talking about EBITDA-before-ESOP while still losing money on PAT.
The rebuild: cut costs, migrate users to other banks’ UPI handles, lean on merchant subscriptions and financial-services distribution. FY26 annual report: revenue ₹8,437 crore (+22% vs FY25’s ₹6,900 crore), EBITDA ₹502 crore vs a ₹1,507 crore EBITDA loss in FY25, merchant GMV ₹23.8 lakh crore. Sharma publicly celebrated PAT-positive quarters in 2025.
Business model
How value moves
- Payment services (largest slice — ₹4,646 crore in FY26).
- Distribution of financial services (₹2,594 crore, +52%).
- Marketing services / ads (₹952 crore, down YoY).
- Merchant device subscriptions as a more recurring stream than take-rate on UPI.
Growth strategy
Pre-2024 growth was GMV and users. Post-2024 growth is merchants who still pay for devices, and credit/insurance distribution. UPI share fell from ~14% (Jan 2024) to high-single digits after the bank ban — PhonePe and Google Pay remain far ahead.
Major milestones
2010
Paytm brand; recharges and wallet path.
2016–17
Demonetisation boom; QR everywhere.
Nov 2021
IPO at ₹2,150; brutal listing.
Jan–Feb 2024
RBI stops PPBL new credits/deposits.
FY25
Revenue shock; cost cuts.
FY26
Return to reported EBITDA profit; GMV rebuild.
Challenges, failures and adaptation
UPI economics are thin. MDR on much of P2M is constrained. Paytm’s bet on taking a share of future MDR pools is a 2026–28 story, not a current cash machine.
The stock remaining below IPO price five years later is the investor lesson: listing into a narrative peak is expensive.
GMI analysis
The following is Grow My India’s interpretation of documented information. It is not a statement by the company.
What we can learn
In fintech, the regulator is a customer.
How to apply it. Give compliance an owner with veto power before you scale GMV. Do not staff it as an afterthought.
Free rails need a paid job around them.
How to apply it. If the transaction is free (UPI), sell the device, the software, or the adjacent loan — not the transfer.
Do not IPO the peak narrative.
How to apply it. List when unit economics are boring. Paytm listed when the story was maximum and the P&L was not.
Sources & references
Research updated September 2026. Time-sensitive figures are dated in the story. Publicly unavailable claims are omitted rather than invented.
- Paytm Annual Report 2026 — One97 Communications, 2026
- How Paytm cut its way to a profit — Mint, 2025
- Paytm stock vs IPO price — The Economic Times, 2026
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