Paisabazaar, an online marketplace for loans and credit cards — which is part of the PolicyBazaar group — has laid off 1,500-2,000 people due to the impact of Covid-19.
Paisabazaar has a strength of 3,000-4,000 employees, which means nearly half its staff is being asked to leave as part of a restructuring. PolicyBazaar, a unicorn backed by SoftBank, employs another 6,000 people in its team.
According to a person aware of the matter, Paisabazaar’s revenue has been down by around 90% since March. “They don’t see any pick-up in lending business for the next year. So, this had to be done,” the person mentioned earlier said.
Owing to the coronavirus impact, other unicorns and large startups like Oyo, Curefit, Swiggy, Ola, and Zomato too have had to cut their team sizes by 10-30%, while some have placed additional staff on furloughs.
In 2019, Paisabazaar had claimed to have disbursed annualised loans to the tune of Rs 10,000 crore. Apart from loans and credit cards, it also lets one invest in mutual funds through its platform. An email sent to the company spokesperson did not elicit any response till the time of going to press.
Leave a Reply