Paytm Money Looks To Gain On Rivals In Tight Investment Tech Race With F&O Trading

Bengaluru-based wealth management platform Paytm Money, on Wednesday (January 13), has announced the launch of its futures and options (F&O) stock options at a flat fee of INR 10 to boost financial inclusion and wealth creation.

The company is targeting to reach INR 1.5 Lakh Cr turnover in the next 18-24 months. F&O trading has been launched as an early access programme for 500 users and will be open to the public in two weeks, Paytm Money’s CEO Varun Sridhar said today.

Founded in September 2018, Paytm Money was launched as a mutual funds investment platform. Beyond mutual funds, it offers initial public offerings (IPO), exchange-traded fund (ETF) trading, national pension system (NPS) investments and digital gold. The company also launched its stockbroking feature in September 2020.

Sridhar claimed that Paytm Money is one of the biggest platforms in terms of mutual funds trading with 7 Mn users and 10 Mn annual transactions. As for the other investment verticals, he noted that the company has added over 1 Lakh stock trading accounts in less than two quarters and registered 50K IPO requests in the last six months. Besides this, the company also claims to have 40% market share in digital gold, with about 60 Mn users and 3.1 Mn annual transactions and over 5400 Kg of digital gold traded.

While it has entered various investment verticals, Paytm Money is not currently considering cryptocurrencies. Sridhar said that the company is not thinking of launching cryptocurrency trading since there are no clear regulations in this space yet. He emphasised that several stakeholders, including Paytm, are in discussion with the government to have clearer regulations.

The company claims that it is a mobile-first platform, with 92% of its trading being done through mobiles. It has grown from a team of five to 300+ in a span of two years.

Wealth Management Flourishes Amid Pandemic In India

Wealth management is increasingly becoming an important segment in the fintech space. Over the last couple of years, the number of users is on the rise and so is the investment amount. However, there is still potential to do more. A report by Deloitte India predicted that the Indian wealth management network is all set to boom by the end of 2020. The report said, “Of every rupee invested in mutual funds and fixed deposits by the end of next year, at least 21 paise is likely to be invested using a digital channel.”

Paytm Money competes with the likes of ETMONEY, Zerodha, Groww, AngelBroking, Cube Wealth, INDWealth, Kuvera, Clear Funds and Scripbox in the rapidly growing investment tech market, which has seen big gains amid the pandemic, despite worries of investors withdrawing their funds in light of the economic downturn.

Digital brokerage unicorn Zerodha’s cofounder and CEO Nithin Kamath has previously claimed that Indian stock market was the most active in 2020 since 2007, as first-time investors entered the market. Zerodha said monthly signups grew from 70K-1 Lakh in January to almost 3 Lakh by March. Groww and AngelBroking also noted the similar trend. Groww said it opened close to 4.5 Lakh Demat accounts since launching stock trading  in June 2020.