Paytm Disappears From Apple’s App Store – Claims Bug And Technical Errors For Glitch

Basking in the glory of the ongoing demonetisation drive in India, Paytm has had an eventful last couple of days. But has it been too much for the ecommerce and payments platform to handle?

According to a recent development, Paytm has delisted its iPhone and iPad apps on the Apple’s App Store after stumbling across bugs and other technical issues. The disappearance of its app from the App Store followed shortly after the service suffered from an outage on December 2o, 2016. The service was triggering issues for several users on December 21, as well.

As per an official blog post issued by the company in response to the matter, Paytm has attributed the issue to certain bugs in its software and stated, “Today we found a bug in our iOS App where certain app users were not able to pay, thereby hanging their app. Soon the system logged them out preventing them from further accessing their account. We are sending an app update to Apple immediately and requesting them to approve the same as soon as possible. Once live, we request our users to update their iOS app.”

The company says it has pushed an update for the app and is waiting for Apple to approve it.

The company also added in the blog post, “We have currently removed the app from the App Store to stop adding incremental new users to our existing base. It will be back as soon as Apple approves our new build. We have also been receiving queries from our users on our 24X7 customer care channels. Please note that your data and money is absolutely safe and secure. This is a minor issue that we are fixing.”

Prior to this, Paytm’s parent company, One97 Communications had issued a public notice that it would be transferring its wallet business, after necessary approvals, to the newly-incorporated Payment Bank entity. One97 Communications and its founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma have collectively invested $32 Mn (INR 220 Cr) till date in Paytm Payments Bank Ltd, ahead of its launch that has now been pushed towards early 2017.

The company also withdrew its in-app POS (point of sale) feature just a day after its launch, citing security concerns raised by payment networks Visa and Mastercard. Following that, it got embroiled in a legal controversy with PayPal with the latter alleging trademark infringement.

Earlier last week, Paytm also identified about 48 fraudulent users in the physical goods marketplace businesses who were trying to game the company’s consumer-friendly practices. The company has filed a complaint against these users misusing consumer-friendly return and refunds policies.

Update: Paytm has relaunched its iOS app and in an official statement issued by the company, it clarified that its iOS app has already been updated on the app store, and users are to update their apps for a seamless experience. It further added that Paytm is also scaling its customer service operations to meet with increasing demands. It is further working towards creating awareness about its services with an aim to educate users to access the app’s wallet.