Money On Mobile: Paytm Plans To Revolutionize The Entire Payment Landscape In India

As the mobile internet users in India are estimated to be 120 million, shopping online through smartphones is also expected to be a game changer shortly and industry experts believe that Mcommerce would contribute up to 70% of ecommerce firms’ total revenues.

Moving in line, India’s leading mobile commerce platform, Paytm is doing every bit to offer customers an easy and hassle-free method of payment thus enhancing customer experience. This time, the company has tied up with Axis Bank (2500 branches) and Yes Bank (1000 branches) to provide an easier way for user to add cash in their Paytm wallet in offline places.

Besides, the company is also speeding towards clocking 100 million wallets by 2016. Its new features are also gaining mileage that enable users to transfer money from Paytm wallet to another. With Paytm wallet the user can also transfer money from their bank account to wallet and from wallet to their bank account. The new service is a convenient way of transferring money online.

Speaking on this development, Amit Lakhotia, Vice President, Paytm said, “Paytm is making online transfer of money faster, easier and more convenient. These are exciting times for the company. We are constantly endeavoring to change the payment landscape of the country and with the path-breaking features of the Paytm wallet, it has become possible to do so. Launching innovative services to achieve optimum customer satisfaction is our sole mandate in the coming days.”

Founded by Vijay Shekhar Sharma in 2010, Paytm is owned-by a leading mobile internet company One97 Communications. It has about 22 Mn app users, with 15,000 merchants accepting its wallet. The company claims to cater more than 30 Mn orders of various digital and physical goods every month.

The five-year-old company is heavily backed by many international investors like Alibaba.

Let’s have a look at the Paytm’s developments in last one year –

February 2014 – Paytm had launched a mobile only marketplace with over 100,000 products in Men, Women, Kids fashion and Home Furnishing Categories from over 250 merchants including Yebhi, Yepme, Myntra etc.

December 2014 – It had announced its plans to go global. The company said that it will be launching its operations in Singapore and other SouthEast Asian markets which includes Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia.

February 2015 – China-based ecommerce giant Alibaba announced its plans to buy a 25% stake in One97 Communications Ltd., which owns Paytm.

February  2015 – Paytm announced plans to set up 30,000 to 50,000 offline retail outlets to help people for a cashless exchange and provide basic customer care. It also plans to hire 4500 more people and add around 10,000 sellers to expand its operations.

March 2015 – Paytm had announced the launch of its app for Android Wear. The newly launched Paytm app will allow shopping & payments from Android wearable and watches.

April 2015 – It has announced that it is working on a platform that will allow its users to add cash into their accounts at retail counters, including kirana stores.

In the mobile wallet service space, Paytm competes with MobiKwik, Oxigen and Citrus in India. Paytm’s unique service of net banking integration has also won tremendous acceptance in a country that is waking up to ecommerce and its benefits at a rapid rate.

There is another interesting fact about mobile wallet in India. Let’s find out how –

According to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the total number of credit cards issued by 55 scheduled commercial banks in India is 19.9 Mn as of October 2014. HDFC Bank issued the highest number of credit cards – 5.6 Mn – followed by 3.3 Mn by ICICI Bank.

On the other hand Paytm, alone has around 22 Mn active users. The number is higher than the cumulative number of credit cards in India. And there are 10-12 companies operating in the mobile wallet space in the country. Paytm had received the wallet service licence from the RBI last year. While MobiKwik, which started operations in 2009, claims to have 12 Mn users.