Paytm Expands Postpaid Services To Enable Free Flowing Line Of Credit

In a bid to generate more credit flow, digital payments platform Paytm has partnered with two undisclosed non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) to expand the use-cases of its digital credit services Paytm Postpaid. The company believes that this will eliminate the need to withdraw cash for meeting monthly household expenses.

Paytm has also increased the credit limit up to INR 1 Lakh of monthly spends, which will allow customers to pay for more expensive items like furniture and consumer electronics among others. It has also announced three new variants of its Postpaid services — Lite, Delite and Elite. These will offer credit based on the partner NBFC’s assessment.

Postpaid Lite will offer loans up to INR 20K and comes with a convenience charge that will be added in the monthly bill. The Lite services would allow customers without an “excellent” credit score avail the convenience and benefits of the Paytm Postpaid service. The Delite and Elite offer loans from INR 20K to INR 1 Lakh on monthly spends, without any convenience charges.

“Paytm Postpaid is our mission to provide access to credit to every Paytm user. During this ongoing pandemic, it becomes more important for us to stand by fellow Indians and give them the power to buy on credit when required,” Amit Nayyar, president at Paytm, said in a press note.

Besides this, Paytm has also decided to offer the postpaid feature for a wider set of use cases. Now, credit services can be availed to buy groceries, other home essentials from neighbourhood kirana stores and other online retailers like Reliance Fresh, Haldiram, Apollo Pharmacy, Croma, Shopper Stop and more.

Paytm will also expand services to include various bill payments facilities available on Paytm, shopping on Paytm Mall, and online payments at internet apps like Domino’s, Tata Sky, Pepperfry, HungerBox, Patanjali and others.

Talking to Inc42 CEO Vaibhav Vardhan during its ‘Ask Me Anything’ webinar, Paytm CEO and founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma had said that lending will face one of the biggest opportunities during and after Covid-19 pandemic. “Companies that swing around to the opportunity of distributing unsecured loans and collecting them well, and underwriting them well will become the champions of tomorrow,” he elaborated.

Alongside this, Paytm has also been focusing on its other businesses, especially the banking and the gaming ones. In April, Paytm not only crossed INR 1K Cr in saving deposits, but also managed to hit the INR 600 Cr mark in fixed deposits. With this, the company decided to launch direct benefit transfers (DBT) of government subsidies to its customers as well.

Besides this, Paytm First Games has also decided to step out of India and into the South Asian market. For this, the company has partnered with South Asian ecommerce platform Daraz to launch Daraz First Games in Bangladesh. The company is also looking to enter Nepal, Sri Lanka and Myanmar.