Paytm Rolls Out 750 Cr Expansion Plan As Payments Biz Gets Tougher

For the next phase of growth, Digital Payment platform Paytm has allocated INR 750 Cr to expand its monthly active users. The platform plans on targeting 250 Mn new customers, and onboard new merchants in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities and towns. For offline payments, the company aims to enable 20 Mn retail merchants to accept digital payments through Paytm QR. 

The news comes a week after, National Payments Corp of India (NPCI) data for July showed a drop in the volume of UPI transactions on Paytm’s platform.  

Currently, Paytm has close to 130 Mn monthly active users and more than 450 Mn registered users, as of July 2019. The platform is connected to over 12 Mn offline merchants, as of July 2019. 

Paytm has been continuously focusing on evolving and innovation to attract more users to its platform. It currently provides a range of services like travel and entertainment booking, recharge and bill payments, education fees, city services and financial services payment. The e-wallet is also trying to digitise governmental fees by adding more government-related services such as electricity, water, gas, toll tax, municipal payments, traffic challan in every town and cities. 

Paytm Inbox is expanding with a 100% quarter-to-quarter (QoQ) growth in its user engagements by offering content services like news, cricket store and videos in a short span of time. This year, the platform also rolled out Paytm First Games which offers more than 300 engaging games like rummy, battle centre, 8 ball pool and live quiz, and has crossed 30 Mn users already.

The platform has also been focusing on its merchant partners as well. This month Paytm has launched another payments gateway for bulk payments, Bulk Payments, to enable customers, vendors or employees to make payments to as many accounts they need to, across various banks. This API bulk payments solution has been developed to make business payment easier. 

The company has been facing tough competition from the relatively new Googly Pay and Phone Pe. Even though, Paytm has been voted as the most trusted brand in a survey conducted in, August 2019, by YouGov survey. It is notable that despite entering the market two years ago, Google Pay, a UPI enabled digital payment platform, has been increasing its user base in India.

For the month of July, Paytm recorded nearly 140 Mn UPI transactions, while its competitors Google Pay reported over 300 Mn and PhonePe claimed to have over 335 Mn UPI transactions. 

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