Paytm acquires 100% stake in CreditMate

Bengaluru : Digital payments major Paytm has acquired 100 per cent stake in digital lending startup CreditMate as the company readies to go public with its IPO in the near future. The amount for acquisition of the entity was not disclosed.

Mumbai-based CreditMate is a collection platform that helps lenders to collect overdue payments from borrowers. The startup, which was founded by Jonathan Bill, Ashish Doshi, Swati Lad and Aditya Singh in 2016, is authorised to collect for over 30 lenders including Paytm, True Balance, MoneyTap, Zest, Capital Float, Cars24, among others.

"Happy to announce that we have successfully exited CreditMate. The Paytm Group will now become 100 per cent beneficial owners of the business. As a cofounder, I am fortunate to have managed all the functions at CreditMate during this journey and led the company over the past few months of transition,"said: cofounder and chief commercial officer Aditya Singh said in a LinkedIn post.

Paytm is currently making efforts to create consumer credit products and the current investment is part of that initiative to offer loans of longer tenure and ticket sizes.

The digital payments firm currently operates a technology platform with capabilities across the entire loan cycle including origination, developing credit risk models, loan management and collection to provide credit access to its consumers and merchant partners through financial institution partners.

Paytm filed its draft red herring prospectus in July for a Rs 16,600 crore IPO, with a sale of fresh stock and offer for sale (OFS) by shareholders each worth Rs 8,300 crore. This will be the largest ever IPO in Indian market if it sails through.

Currently, Founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma holds 15 per cent stake in the company. Other key investors include Elevation Capital with 17.65 per cent, SoftBank at 18.73 per cent, Alibaba and its affiliate Ant Group at 38 per cent in the company.

Currently, more than a dozen firms including Delhivery, Nykaa, MobiKwik have also filed IPO papers for approval.