Paytm and Pine Labs accelerate hiring of sales staff amid a shift towards AI-powered distribution to deepen merchant relationships and secure a competitive edge in the evolving fintech landscape.
Indian fintech firms are putting more people on the front line as they look to turn merchant relationships into a lasting advantage. With software increasingly faster and cheaper to build, companies such as Paytm and Pine Labs are betting that the harder task is no longer product development but finding better ways to distribute those products and cross-sell more services to merchants.
Paytm has expanded its sales force sharply, lifting average sales headcount by 12% to 43,715 in the first quarter of FY27 from 38,946 a year earlier, according to the company’s latest figures. The figure also rose from 40,512 in the previous quarter, suggesting the company has continued to add field staff at pace. On its investor update, Paytm said operating revenue rose 28% year on year to ₹2,448 crore and profit after tax climbed 79% to ₹220 crore, helped by stronger performance across its merchant and consumer businesses.
Pine Labs is following a similar path. The company said in its earnings release that it added 500 sales employees over the year and intends to deploy them across mid-market accounts, overseas business teams and product capability functions. Chief executive Amrish Rau told analysts the company had brought forward spending on sales, with the payoff expected over the next 6 to 12 months. He said the Indian market offered strong opportunity in both online and offline payments, particularly as more direct-to-consumer internet merchants look for alternatives.
The shift underscores how artificial intelligence is reshaping fintech competition. Paytm founder and chief executive Vijay Shekhar Sharma told analysts that when much of software can now be assembled quickly, the key question is how efficiently it reaches customers. He said AI tools were already helping guide field sales staff and merchant acquisition work. At the same time, both companies have been watching costs closely: Pine Labs said employee costs rose 7% to ₹242 crore in the quarter, while Paytm reported a similar 7% increase in non-sales employee costs to ₹403 crore.
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