Paytm Eyes $2Bn-$3 Bn GMV With Its Education Portfolio Services

Noida-headquartered digital payments player Paytm is further expanding its revenue sources. The company’s latest diversification has come with plans to expand Paytm Education, which was introduced last month.

Paytm Education 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.

In an interview, Vineet Kaul, senior vice-president, Paytm told Livemint that it now plans to scale up its educational services portfolio. This would include payment for insurance for tuition fee loans, co-branded debit cards, test-taking platforms, among others in the next one to one-and-a-half years to clock a gross merchandise value (GMV) of around $2Bn-$3 Bn.

Paytm Education: Adding Fee Protect And More

Kaul further said that in a year from now, the company would have finished at least a broad set of products that it wants to build. “It would be making sure broadly that all coaching players worth their salt are listed on the Paytm platform and users are actually able to buy products from them, and then have our test-taking platform ready,” he added.

Kaul shared that last year, Paytm education had a GMV of a little less than $1 Bn. The company now plans to expand from operations that just include payment of fees and certain other services to also provide an insurance product for tuition fees, called “Fee Protect”, he added.

The Fee Protect will provide insurance for tuition fees with an annual premium of roughly INR 250 per lakh. It is also building a debit card that will be co-branded with educational institutes, and would double up as a library card, among others.

Paytm claims to list around 20K colleges, universities and other educational institutes on its platform. The ecommerce payment system 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.

Paytm: Diversifying Portfolio

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.

To scale up entertainment biz, Paytm allocated INR 750 Cr and aimed to have 250 Mn monthly active users this year for Paytm Inbox. Earlier, Deepak Abbot, senior vice-president, Paytm said that the company has witnessed 100% q-o-q growth in its user engagement through Paytm Inbox where it offers news, cricket store, and videos.

Also, recently reports surfaced that Paytm plans to venture into healthcare payment for doctors, which will allow them to accept payments from patients and to purchase supplies for their medical practice.

It is believed that Paytm is pushing for diversification now as it is losing its foot in digital payments. For instance, in July, the company recorded nearly 140 Mn UPI transactions, as against above 300 Mn UPI transactions by its peers— Google Pay and PhonePe. Paytm, however, claimed that it has achieved over 600 Mn transactions in July, which includes payments through Paytm Wallet, Paytm UPI, cards and net banking.

Further, the company’s ecommerce arm, Paytm Mall, has was never that successful.  On July 18,  eBay acquired a 5.5% stake in the Indian ecommerce marketplace and announced a strategic partnership with Paytm.

However, now the question arises if diversification is the way forward for Paytm?

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