Paytm Education Brings Focus On Learning And Exams With Fee Payments, Financial Services

Paytm has announced its entry into the Indian education market, with Paytm Education. The platform, which will compete in the lucrative $101.1 Bn education market, is said to offer a full bouquet of services across payments (in-app and educational centres), commerce (coaching, scholarships, test preparation, admission forms etc.), financial support (student insurance, educational loans, EMIs, smart cards) and academic services.

Paytm Education is looking to tap all areas in partnership with educational institutions, both private and government. It’s going after private entrance tests as well as public university tests, and government jobs, which is a highly lucrative market. The list includes names such as Railway Recruitment Board, Maharashtra Public Service Commission, National Testing Agency, Indian Navy, Amity, VIT, Manipal, AKTU, Army Public Schools, Delhi Public Schools, Delhi University, IITs, IIMs, NITs, Aligarh Muslim University, AIMA, ICAI, Narayana Group, Career Launcher, Made Easy, Career360 and several others.

Vineet Kaul, SVP, Paytm said the company will provide details on 25K colleges, schools, courses and exams to facilitate payments, commerce and financial services. Further, with Paytm Education, the company is aiming to sign up 3.5 Cr users across 20K private schools, 1,000 higher educational institutes and 1,000 coaching institutes while achieving higher GMV with its large bouquet of services.

Paytm already offers fee payment services at more than 10,000 educational institutions across the country. By FY 2020, it plans to cross INR 20K CR GMV in the education business.

In FY 2019, the company reported 5.5 Bn transactions with a gross transaction value (GTV) of over $50 Bn. The company currently offers more than 200 services and have also entered into online wealth management with Paytm Money last year.

According to a June 2019 IBEF report, India has the world’s largest population in the age bracket of 5-24 years, totalling around 500 Mn and this provides a great opportunity for the education sector. The number of colleges and universities in India reached close to 40K in 2017-18, while 36.64 Mn students were enrolled in higher education in 2017-18.

Even when it comes to elearning and online courses, India ia huge market with an ever-increasing addressable market. It is the second-largest market for elearning after the US, and this sector is expected to reach $1.96 Bn by 2021 with around 9.5 Mn users in India.

Evidently, the opportunity in the Indian education sector is far from saturated. The operational edtech startups in the country have just scratched the surface and the sector is still dominated majorly by offline institutions.

According to Datalabs by Inc42, around 3,500 startups in India are catering to the education or edtech space, creating content in various formats and languages for students to consume at their own convenience. In 2018, Indian edtech startups received close to $700 Mn in funding — an 85% jump from the $375 Mn funding in 2017 (of which $230 Mn was invested in BYJU’s alone).