The first thing that comes into our minds when we’re out shopping is, Does the shopkeeper accept Paytm? Post demonetization Paytm is being widely used by every single person in India. Paytm has turned out to be one of the most successful and profitable companies that are growing rapidly. Wherever you see, be it a small Vada Pav stall owner to the big shops at the malls, everyone uses Paytm these days. Paytm brought about a paradigm shift in the world of retail shopping by completely transforming the payment methodology.
It is also considered to be the Avant-garde of the cashback business system that is popular in India. It has surpassed all other mobile payment applications and has proved to be their leader. Initially, when this e-commerce website and service was launched, the features were restricted to payment of bills, DTH services and mobile recharges. Over the years, this app has introduced a number of new features and now we can even book tickets for movies and other events using this application.
Founder Of PayTm
The prodigy of India’s leading e-commerce website, none other than Paytm was introduced to the Indian market by Mr. Vijay Shekhar Sharma in 2010, a visionary alumnus of the Delhi college of engineering. This e-commerce website gained immense popularity after the decision of demonetization by Narendra Modi. Paytm became one of the prime sources to run the economy as hard cash was not available anywhere. People were lured in to use Paytm post demonetization.
Paytm has become the torch-bearer of the cashless economy and it has become the lifeline for several middle-class and lower-middle-class individuals who now completely rely on this application for their day-to-day business and needs. Paytm has focused on catering to the needs of the youth. Teenagers and young adults are more technologically driven which is what Paytm focuses on.
Providing a greater number of features and benefits, Paytm has made sure that every single teenager in the country has Paytm on their phone. In a span of just 8 years, Paytm has over 250 users who have registered and the count increases every day.
Investors
Major investors of Paytm are Alipay, Alibaba groups, Silicon Valley Bank and SAIF partners. You must be curious about the revenue received by this app. Paytm has numerous revenue resources, most of it is from an escrow account maintained in a nationalized bank, commission from utility bill payments and other recharges and also commission on fund transfers from e-wallets to the various bank accounts.
The success story of the owner himself: Paytm is now valued at over eight billion dollars. In 2017, the owner, Vijay Shekhar Sharma was honored as the youngest Indian billionaire who had an asset of over 1.3 billion dollars. Before he even came up with the concept of Paytm, he laid the foundation for the parent company, One97 communications in the first year of the millennium. He also developed Indiasite.net in the year 1997 and sold it at a whopping 1 million dollars. His current business partners, Mr. Jack Ma and Masayoshi are his inspirations too.
Evolution and Growth of PayTm
The security features and easy to handle application make Paytm the most popular digital payment platform in India. Being a reserve bank of India approved e-wallet, the user’s money is safe under the escrow account with a nationalized bank. Paytm uses Verisign-certified 128-bit encryption technology. This ensures that the private information of the users and their passwords are safe, and thus, providing a greater amount of protection to the users.
Paytm not only has a secure system but is also robust. Paytm can handle about 5000 transactions per second. This high capacity is made possible by the implementation of a very simple but effective payment method. It is easy for the users to pay by just scanning a QR code of the shop or by entering their mobile number and the transaction is complete. The Paytm wallet has also enabled an option where a user can safely park his money in the application and pay from the money in the wallet or they can directly pay from the bank via the application. Paytm has become the most favored payment application, thanks to the combination of secure and high capacity transactions. Recent studies have shown that Paytm has surpassed other such online payment applications like MobiKwik and Freecharge in terms of the number of users as well as the revenue generated.
Future
Expansion plans: in the previous year, Paytm’s market share among the e-payment companies was 26%. Paytm is now planning to spread its roots into other avenues. By the end of 2020, Paytm plans on tapping the loan market and disbursing small amounts of loans to around 500 million people.
The Paytm payment bank was recently introduced in May 2017. A small 5-member board committee has been made that is in charge of expanding the physical presence of the Paytm banks.
Paytm has also planned on competing with WhatsApp by giving them a run for their money by launching a chat app with more sophisticated features and more benefits comparatively. Paytm has acquired Shifu and Near.in to enhance and strengthen its offline as well as online platforms in order to improve their customer experience.
Paytm has been awarded for its unprecedented success and has won accolades across the globe for its work in the digital payment industry.
Here are some of the awards won by Paytm in recent years:
- The diamond SABRE award in the company of the year at SABRE awards, 2017
- The GLOBAL SABRE award in financial professional services at SABRE awards, 2017
These were only some of the few awards that Paytm has won. The start-up stories of Paytm is truly an inspiration to many young, aspiring entrepreneurs looking forward to starting their own business someday.