Paytm launches 'App POS' for small merchants to accept debit, credit cards

India's largest digital wallet and payment company Paytm on Wednesday updated its app to launch India's first APP POS allowing all small and medium merchants to accept all card payments including Rupay, Visa, MasterCard and Maestro.

Under "Accept Payment" icon on new updated App, small shopkeepers and businesses can self declare their details and give bank account details to start receiving payments instantly.

"Paytm has already been accepted by many merchants. By extending our merchant network to all other payment networks, we are enabling digital payments to a very large number of Indians," said Founder and CEO Paytm, Vijay Shekhar Sharma at an event in New Delhi.

The company aims to empower over 15 million merchants across the country by enabling them to accept debit and credit card payments at zero setup fee and zero introductory transaction processing cost.

"We are on a mission to democratize payments and empower even the smallest merchants to be able to accept credit and debit card payments from their customers. We are very proud that we are able to contribute to the digitization of our economy," added Vijay.

Backed by a strong ecosystem of customers and merchants, the company is currently registering over an average of five million transactions worth with an annualized GMV of Rs. 30,000 crore.

Paytm is accepted everywhere including taxi, autos, petrol pumps, grocery shops, restaurants, coffee shops, multiplexes, parking, pharmacies, hospitals, kirana shops, newspaper vendors and many more. It can now also be used to pay at thousands of apps and websites for services like recharges and bill payments, movie tickets, travel bookings, food ordering and shopping.

Currently there are only 1.4 million POS Terminals across the country to serve over 750 million Indian consumers who have debit/credit cards. Only 3.5 percent of all retail outlets in the country accept debit/credit cards with near zero penetration in the mass retail segment which makes up more than 90 percent of all retail in India.

With its assertive focus on mobile payments, Paytm is inching closer to its aim of making cashless transactions a way of life by developing alternate solutions to address this challenge.