Paisabazaar achieves profitability ahead of guidance

Gurgaon (Haryana) [India], February 22 (ANI/NewsVoir): Paisabazaar, India’s leading marketplace for consumer credit and free credit score platform, announced that it became profitable in December 2022 (on adjusted EBITDA basis). Paisabazaar, part of PB Fintech Limited, has reached this milestone ahead of its guided timeline. The milestone has elevated Paisabazaar into a rare league of B2C Fintechs that has achieved large-scale, brand trust and profitability.

Paisabazaar achieved profitability with an 87 per cent growth in its loan disbursals in the first 9 months of FY 23, taking its annualized disbursal run-rate to ~Rs 12,700 crore. In its credit cards business, Paisabazaar grew 277 per cent year-on-year (YTD), with issuance crossing 5 lakh credit cards on an annualized basis. Paisabazaar also continued to scale its credit awareness initiative as ~2 million consumers checked their free credit score for the first time on its platform in the 3rd quarter of FY 23.

Till date, ~33 million consumers from 823 cities across India have accessed their free credit score and report on Paisabazaar. Yashish Dahiya, Chairman and CEO, PB Fintech, said, “Paisabazaar is a relatively young brand, but it has built credibility and scale over the last few years, and now it has turned profitable. I am extremely proud of what Paisabazaar has achieved. Our ethos as a Group, whether it is Policybazaar or Paisabazaar, remains the same. We aim to cater to our consumers for all their insurance and credit needs, with the best products and processes.”

One of Paisabazaar’s key focus areas, especially post the COVID pandemic, has been to build digitization-led processes and sharpen product offerings to varied consumer segments, leading to higher conversions and sustainable margins. Paisabazaar’s co-created and co-branded initiative has played a critical role here, helping cover need gaps for specific segments through product and process innovations.

The co-created products, all end-to-end digital, also help Paisabazaar drive trail revenue streams and build margins. In December 2022, 33 per cent of Paisabazaar’s loan disbursals and 50 per cent of credit cards issued were with trail revenue. Through deeper engagements with partner Banks and NBFCs, Paisabazaar plans to steadily transition to a trail revenue-led business model that would lead to long-term profitability.

Naveen Kukreja, Co-founder & CEO, Paisabazaar, said, “We started to earn our own bread before we turned 9 years old as an organization. While we are proud of this milestone, we are aware of the massive market opportunity ahead, both for us and the industry. We’d continue to focus on building a sustainable scale of business and profitability from a long-term perspective, keeping strong fundamentals at the core.”

With focus on long-term growth and profitability, Paisabazaar says it would continue investing in its brand and digital capabilities, which would help build scale and improve margins. 75 per cent of the credit cards issued through Paisabazaar in Q3 were done through end-to-end digital processes. There has been over 10X growth in the end-to-end digital transactions on Paisabazaar since the beginning of FY 22. Today, customer journeys with 12 partners are end-to-end digitized on the Paisabazaar platform.

According to Paisabazaar, as digitization becomes more real on-ground and its credit score consumer base continues to scale, it would be able to serve consumers more seamlessly, through initiatives like Pre-Approved Programs that enables ease of access. Since its inception in 2014, Paisabazaar’s aim has been to make lending easy, convenient and transparent for consumers, by innovating through products, processes and partnerships.

Paisabazaar’s depth of partnerships across the ecosystem and focus on innovation has enabled it to offer a wide choice of lending solutions to varied consumer segments and build scale and trust. Today, the Paisabazaar platform receives around 19 lakh enquiries from 1000+ cities and towns in a month. Paisabazaar has earned the trust and goodwill of over 33 million consumers over the last 9 years.

Paisabazaar has 60 partnerships with large banks, large NBFCs, credit bureaus and fintech lenders to offer a wide choice of lending products for consumers on its platform. Strong partnerships, built through technology and data integration enables Paisabazaar to offer consumers digital and easy processes and faster disbursals.

From application to disbursal, Paisabazaar accompanies the Consumer at each step, providing last-mile assistance such as document collection and assistance until disbursal and advise. Paisabazaar, since 2017, has also been providing consumers access to credit reports from credit bureaus, offering Consumers lifetime checking and tracking of their credit scores for free. Around 3.3 crore consumers have checked their free credit score from Paisabazaar.

Paisabazaar has been recognized at several industry platforms with awards like ‘Digital Lending Award’ at the Fintech India Innovation Awards, ‘Best Lending Fintech’ at the Bharat Fintech Awards, ‘Excellence in Consumer Lending’ at IAMAI’s India Digital Awards, ‘Outstanding Crisis Finance Innovation (Asia Pacific) Award’ by Global Finance Magazine, ‘Most Innovative Lending Startup’ and ‘Best Fintech Consumer Lender’ by India Fintech Forum and Economic Times’ ‘Most Promising Brand’.

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