Paytm to enable 5 million merchants to go digital in 2017

Moneycontrol Bureau

In a bid to get the maximum pie of e-wallet business in the country, Paytm has announced that it will enable 5 million merchants to leapfrog to digital payments in 2017. Post demonetisation drive by PM Modi, e-wallet players have registered phenomenal growth both in terms of customers and merchants.

The company claims to have already enabled 1.5 million merchants on its platform.  It now aims to enable distributors and suppliers to receive payments digitally from these merchants in order to fully cover the distribution network.

Paytm’s Vice President Sudhanshu Gupta in a statement said, “While our large field teams work on educating and onboarding merchants to accept Paytm, we understand that it is a need for our retailers to also be able to pay their suppliers digitally and we are working towards that. We are enabling sabzi mandis to accept Paytm and are also working with sales and distribution companies to bring their networks onboard.”

Earlier this week, the company had setup a 100 member help desk to educate merchants on the need and usage of digital payments. Under the program merchants will be educated on all the important aspects, which are currently becoming a concern and dispelling a lot of myth around safety, security and delay in money transfer to the bank account.

The e-wallet major has also enhanced security features of its app by launching an ‘App Password’ feature. With this feature, users can set a secure Pin, password, pattern or fingerprint as a means to ensure money stored in the wallet remains safe even if the owner’s phone is lost or misplaced.

It has also implemented another security feature called masking which hides the mobile number of the sender and the recipient. This guarantees security against fraud and also protects users from possible harassment and spam calls.

 “We are committed to solving everyday problems with technology as our teams constantly receive feedback and implement new features to enable users. We have upgraded our system capacity to ensure a seamless experience for our users, even though there are a few hick ups coming due to congestion in bank networks,” Gupta added.

Backed by Alibaba Group, Paytm competes with Mobikwik and Freecharge in the e-wallet segment and has so far raised USD760 million in funding. Follow @startup_18