New Delhi, NFAPost: India’s Fintech major Paytm has made it clear that deploying artificial intelligence (AI)-powered systems to improve business efficiency. The company made its stand during the firm’s Q3 earnings call with analysts.
Paytm Founder and Chief Executive Officer Vijay Shekhar Sharma said instead of expanding business functions, the company is trying to add capabilities of machines and systems to the platform.
“The systems will continue to grow and this will create demand in a linear way of the number of people we need. We have seen our people cost come down. We will remain focussed and tighten our people cost, especially for the on-th-ground sales team, which is a very large part of our people cost,” said Paytm Founder and Chief Executive Officer Vijay Shekhar Sharma.
The move to focus on tech-enabled systems to improve operational efficiency of business comes amid the company’s stance on rationalising its employee cost structures. These includes revising its hiring strategy, focusing on contract employees and a stricter performance appraisal.
“Today, with the technology, which is powered through AI, we are able to do more work much more efficiently with less number of people. It is also interesting to note that employees costs went down in the past few quarters,” said Paytm Founder and Chief Executive Officer Vijay Shekhar Sharma.
Employee cost, excluding employee stock options 0r ESOP for the third quarter of FY24 was Rs 809 crore, slightly up from Rs 807 crore during the Q2. The leading Indian fintech major already made it clear that it will not hire sales people in similar numbers as compared to the previous quarters.
The company also said its by now pay later (BNPL) product, also known as Paytm Postpaid, will continue to shrink in terms of its contribution to the lending business over the next two quarters. This comes after the fintech firm cut down on these disbursement following tightening norms by RBI.
