Paytm launches a ‘mini-app store’ within its own app

Digital payments major Paytm has launched its own ‘Android Mini App Store’ as the battle with technology major Google heats up. The Noida based fintech company said that it aims to support Indian developers through this initiative.

Paytm will be providing listing and distribution services to these mini-apps within the Paytm app without any extra charges, the company said in a press note today.

This is an important move from the payments giant since the app developers have been engaged in a friction with Google because of its latest changes in the billing and payment policies for apps hosted on the Google Play Store.

Mini-apps are customised mobile websites which give users an app like experience, but the difference is it operates on a web browser and users do not need to download a separate app for this.

A web app is different from a native app which needs to be downloaded from an app store which in case of Apple is App Store and for Google it is Google Play Store. A web app opens on the web browser for all its functions. While the benefit of a web app is that it does not use the phone’s internal storage and cannot read smartphone data, the problem is in many cases it only offers basic user interface features.

For payments, the web apps can use Paytm’s services like Paytm wallet, payments bank, Unified Payments Interface, netbanking and cards. It offers UPI at zero charges and levies a 2 percent charge for other instruments like credit cards

This digital infrastructure will enable app developers to build low cost apps using HTML and Javascript technologies.

More than 300 app-based service providers such as Decathlon, Ola, Park+, Rapido, Netmeds, 1MG, Domino's Pizza, FreshMenu, NoBroker have already joined the program which has been running in beta with select users and witnessed over 12 million visits in September.

“Paytm Mini App Store empowers our young Indian developers to leverage our reach and payments to build new innovative services. For Paytm users, it will be a seamless experience that doesn't require any separate download and enables them to use their preferred payment option," said Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder, Paytm.

Paytm has been on a collision course with Google, since the time Google removed Paytm from the Play Store for a few hours on September 18. Google said that the app was removed because it violated Google’s gambling and betting policies. However Paytm founder Sharma retorted against the move citing that the American tech major was behaving as a judge, jury and executioner in this case and did not give enough time to allow Paytm to explain its stand on the issue.

Sources indicate that Sharma along with a group of Indian startup founders are also looking to create an alternative to Google Play Store thereby attempting to challenge the dominant position of Google’s app store in India, which is majorly an Android market.

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