Digital Payments Giant Paytm Records $20 Bn GTV Run Rate, Up From $5 Bn In March 2017

Homegrown digital payments giant Paytm has recorded a four-fold jump in its annualised gross transaction value (GTV) to $20 Bn (INR 1.3 Lakh Cr), up from $5 Bn in March 2017.

With a comprehensive suite of payments, commerce and financial services products, the company currently registers over 1 Bn transactions per quarter.

Commenting on the feat, Kiran Vasireddy, COO of Paytm said, “We are processing over 1 Bn transactions a quarter, which reflects the network effect of our diverse and multiple use-cases that we have on our platform. We have enabled mobile payments in several new use-cases including traffic challans, parking, utility payments and educational institutions where cash was the primary method of payments, making it more convenient for both consumers and merchant to transact.”

“Today, Paytm QR has emerged as the payment method of choice for millions of merchants, allowing them to accept card, bank and Paytm payments directly into their bank accounts at 0% fee. We are fully committed to invest further to enhance the payments infrastructure and we will not stop till we take digital payments to every nook and corner of our country,” Kiran added.

Apart from mobile recharges, utility bill payments as well as travel, events and movie booking, the homegrown unicorn facilitates payments at kirana stores, vegetable/fruit shops, restaurants, parking tolls, pharmacies, schools and colleges with Paytm QR. At present, more than 7 Mn offline merchants accept payments using Paytm QR.

Additionally, over 50% of the company’s transactions are from tier II and tier III cities. As an online utility payments service provider, Paytm is available in 3,000 cities and towns. It also claims to power digital payments at over 5,000 schools and colleges across India.

The development comes just over two weeks after the company announced that it is the largest contributor to the overall volume of UPI transactions in the country. The digital payments giant claimed to have contributed 68 Mn UPI transactions in February 2018.

However, soon after the reports surfaced, Flipkart-owned PhonePe, in a blog post titled ‘All that glitters is not gold’, termed Paytm’s claim of being the biggest payments network on UPI as unidimensional and misleading, and added that broad-based adoption of UPI has not happened on Paytm yet.

Paytm: Driving Innovation For Sustained Growth

Paytm has been driving innovations for digital payments for quite some time now. Towards the end of January, the Vijay Shekhar Sharma-founded company launched the Paytm for Business app on Android Play Store.

The app enables new merchants to sign up quickly and get a Paytm QR code to start accepting digital payments. The app also enables merchants to manage their day to day payments and day-end reconciliations. As per the official statement,  the Paytm for Business app is currently available in over 10 regional languages.

Later in February, the company introduced its own credit scoring product Paytm Score. The initiative aims to strengthen Paytm’s lending vertical.

Earlier this month, the company announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary Paytm Money Limited received the official approval of the Securities and Capital Markets regulator SEBI (Securities and Exchange Board of India) to become a Registered Investment Advisor.

This license will allow the Softbank, SAIF Partners, Alibaba Group and Ant Financial-backed company to roll out the investment and wealth management products to millions of consumers across India.

Most recently, in the third week of March, it launched two new services – Gold Gifting and Gold Savings Plan as a part of its wealth management offering Paytm Gold. Through these services, customers can now send 24K 999.9 Purity Gold to each other instantly.

Continuing its series of partnerships, it has also partnered with ICICI Bank to launch a short-term, interest-free credit line, enabling instant loans to customers.

As a per a report by Google and Boston Consulting Group, the digital payments industry in India is projected to reach $500 Bn by 2020, contributing 15% to India’s GDP. Riding on this wave, Paytm has been clocking stronger growth numbers in recent times, as evident from the four-fold jump in its annualised gross transaction value in February this year.