IPO-Bound Paytm To Launch Co-Branded Credit Cards With HDFC Bank In Festive Season

Fintech unicorn Paytm, in partnership with HDFC Bank, will launch a comprehensive range of credit cards powered by VISA. The alliance will provide a wide range of offerings across customer segments with a focus on millennials, business owners and merchants. The cards would make Paytm’s foray into the credit card segment for merchants, benefitting its base of more than 21 Mn merchants.

The credit cards will be customised to cater to the needs of the retail customers ranging from new-to-credit users to affluent users. In addition, Paytm and HDFC claims the cards will offer “best-in-class” rewards and cashback for users and facilitate small business owners, 

The card is reportedly slated for a launch in October 2021, which intercedes with the festival season. The company claims this is being done deliberately to tap into potentially higher consumer demand for credit card offers, EMIs and buy now pay later (BNPL) options, with the full suite of products on offer by the end of December 2021.

HDFC is among the banks that have the highest credit card users. According to reports, in the financial year that ended in 2021, the bank had issued nearly 14.9 Mn credit cards. With over 5.1 Cr credit cards, debit cards and prepaid cards and over 2 Mn merchants, addressing every market segment, every third rupee spent on cards in India happens on HDFC Bank cards.

Bhavesh Gupta, CEO, Paytm Lending, said, “At Paytm, we aim to democratise the access to credit to drive financial inclusion amongst our 330 Mn+ consumers and 21 Mn+ merchant partners. With our technological capabilities, Paytm’s merchant partners and India’s new-to credit millennials will now be able to build a healthy credit profile and gain access to opportunities available in the formal economy.” 

With the partnership, both Paytm and HDFC plan to deliver superior value and experience to customers by leveraging off HDFC’s salience as India’s leading issuer of credit cards and strength in providing superior customer engagement, and Paytm’s digital prowess and reach of over 330 Mn consumers.

Paytm claims that the alliance will target a deeper penetration into the tier II and tier III markets and accelerate digitised payments across the country. In addition, the duo also plans to introduce business credit cards, which will offer a host of benefits for merchant partners from the smaller cities and towns of India and enable them to get easier access to credit with instant and paperless approvals. 

The Paytm and HDFC credit card range will also introduce an entire range of consumer credit cards, offering cashback and benefits and mobile credit cards targeted at digital-first millennials. Users can apply through a digital and paperless process and fully complete the Paytm app’s onboarding process.

However, Paytm isn’t the first Indian startup to launch its co-branded credit card service. In 2019, Walmart-owned Flipkart diversified into fintech services by launching its co-branded credit card with Axis Bank, powered by MasterCard’s payment’s architecture.

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