If at first you fail in New York, try again in Mumbai.

That’s the plan at Pine Labs, the fintech that’s spent 27 years helping India swipe, tap, and pay in instalments. On 14 November, it will make its long-delayed stock-market debut at home, hoping to raise about Rs 2,100 crore in new shares and another Rs 1,800 crore through an offer-for-sale. 

Yet, while the company is chasing a successful listing after its US IPO plans collapsed in 2023, investors seem to have learned from other fintech fairy tales.

On day 2 of the public offer, just over 50% of the issue was subscribed to. Retail investors are cautiously curious (87%), but the big boys—non-institutional investors and qualified institutional buyers—are barely noticing, with bids at 12% and 64%. The chill is understandable: Pine Labs has already taken a 40% haircut in valuation, down from $5 billion to $2.9 billion, trimmed its offer size, and still carries that scent of the Paytm* problem. That collective trauma of a payments darling that went public, then promptly tanked (The stock still trades 38% below its issue price despite turning its first-ever profit in the June quarter).

Still, Pine Labs isn’t Paytm. It never tried to conquer every tea stall and grocery counter in India. Instead, it built its business inside malls and showrooms—Reliance, Apple, Trent, Samsung—where customers buy items expensive enough to need equated monthly instalments (EMIs). But its point-of-sale (PoS) terminals, once the heart of its revenue, now account for less than 30%; the rest comes from prepaid cards, bill payments, and software, according to a person close to the company. 

It’s a slower, steadier business, too. After nearly three decades, Pine Labs, which works with roughly 990,000 merchants, clocked revenue of Rs 2,274 crore in the financial year 2025. Paytm, nearly half as old, serves about 45 million merchants and earns about 3X as much.