Paytm chief says, 'Building India scale AI system to help financial institutes capture risks and frauds'

One 97 Communications Ltd, which owns the brand Paytm, is building India scale AI system to help financial institutes capture risks and frauds, said Paytm chief Vijay Shekhar Sharma in the fintech firm's annual report for 2022-23.

In his letter to shareholders, Sharma spoke that Paytm pioneered mobile payments in India and led mass adoption with innovations like QR Codes and Soundbox.

India can expect 500 million payment consumers and 100 million merchants ''not very far in future'', Sharma said.

"In India, we can expect 500 million payment consumers and 100 million merchants not very far in future. This is made possible by Paytm leading from the front, our government’s agenda to drive Digital India and the regulator's encouragement to build an open scalable payment system. We are not only beneficiaries but also the biggest champions of government and regulator driven Digital Public Infrastructure," said Sharma.

He also spoke about the firm's artificial intelligence capabilities. 

"I am very proud of our Advanced AI capabilities in use and how we are expanding. We are building an India scale AI system which will help various financial institutes in capturing possible risks and frauds, while also protecting them from new kinds of risks due to advancement in AI. Paytm is investing in AI with an eye on building Artificial General Intelligence software stack. We believe by building it in India we are not only making our country’s tech capability, also creating something that could be leveraged outside India," he said.

After revolution in mobile payments, Paytm CEO said the firm's next frontier will be small credit. 

"In India’s Digital revolution after mobile payments, Paytm’s next contribution will be – small mobile credit with high credit quality and fully compliant with the regulators guidelines," said Sharma. The company’s application for a payment aggregator licence was recently returned by the RBI.

With a disciplined and result-oriented approach in all the selected investment areas, Sharma expressed confidence that the company will be able to capitalise and build strong differentiators in the market and in turn a business that scales efficiently without linearly adding to costs.

Beyond payment and credit disbursement business, Sharma said he is excited by possibilities of Open Network of Digital Commerce (ONDC).

''We have seen very encouraging early results of the same. In my opinion, in the next three years you will see some worthy numbers and results of hard work put in by the team. Your company's team remains committed to serve India and build a long term profitable business,'' he said.