Lending winter is sending chills to listed fintech companies 

The slowdown in unsecured consumer loans by banks and non-banking financiers is gnawing into the revenues of listed fintechs likePaytmandMobiKwikthat have built credit as the cornerstone of their business. Even credit marketplaces like Paisabazaar are showing a major slowdown in the unsecured business.One 97 Communications(OCL), which runs Paytm, said in December 2024, the company earned 502 crore from financial services, down 17.3% from 607 crore a year back. Its personal loan disbursals fell 60.8% to `1,746 crore year-on-year. Paytm offers consumer as well as merchant loans and is now focusing on the latter for revenue growth.One MobiKwik Systems which runs the eponymous fintech platform, showed a similar trend. Its revenue from financial services slumped to 730 crore in the December quarter from 1,550 crore a year back.ETtechIn terms of disbursals, Zip loan disbursals through the MobiKwik platform fell to 700 crore in the December quarter compared to 2,400 crore a year back.MobiKwik offersZip loansto its customers, where they can get personal loans up to 2 lakh for a tenure up to two years. Addressing stock market analysts, Upasana Taku, chief financial officer of MobiKwik, said that the overall slowdown in the unsecured credit market has impacted their disbursals and the firm is looking to balance the slowdown in this business with new products like UPI-enabled RuPay credit cards.Discover the stories of your interestBlockchain5 StoriesCyber-safety7 StoriesFintech9 StoriesE-comm9 StoriesML8 StoriesEdtech6 StoriesFor PB Fintech, which runs credit marketplace Paisabazaar, the credit business is down around 20% yearon-year. “This is the first quarter where we have seen a significant reduction compared to the previous. So, even on quarter and quarter. It’s about 13% down,” saidPB Fintechgroup CEO Yashish Dahiya addressing stock market analysts after the December quarter results.Alternate betsFounders are betting on alternate business lines to offset the slowdown in personal loans. Noida based Paytm is chasing merchant payments and loans as major business opportunities. It suffered a jolt in merchant payments after its associate entity Paytm Payments Bank had to stop operations after regulatory action early last year.Merchant loan disbursals have been slightly higher at 3,831 crore in this year’s December quarter compared to `3,579 crore last year.Also Read: Banks to take on fintechs with feature-packed merchant apps