Paytm eyes onboarding 10 mn merchants with addition of PoS machine, new solutions

Paytm on Tuesday said it aims to add close to 10 million merchants to its platform over the next 12-18 months as it brings new features to its payments platform.

The company, which has introduced a new all-in-one payment gateway and business solutions as well as an Android-based point of sale (POS) machine, currently has over 16 million merchants across unorganised and organised sectors.

"Over the past 18 months, we have invested a lot of time in understanding the needs of small businesses around digital payments. We will continue to bring in features and solutions to address their challenges," Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma told PTI.

He added that the new features and products launched on Tuesday will provide an opportunity to add 10 million merchants over the next 12-18 months.

Merchants are looking for solutions that not only support acceptance of all kinds of payments (UPI, card and wallets), but also allow easy reconciliation, he said.

Sharma added that Paytm's Android-based POS machine will be "about 20-30 per cent cheaper and more comprehensive than competition".

Of the 26 billion digital transactions in the country in 2019, about 15 billion were made to merchants with debit cards and wallets accounting for a major chunk, he said.

He added that with 300 million wallets, 100 million Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and 55 million bank accounts, Paytm is the most comprehensive payment app, and that it is "bigger than all others combined in merchant mobile payments".

Karnataka, Maharashtra and Delhi were the top states where Paytm was witnessing the highest merchant signups, while Bihar, West Bengal and Assam registered the fastest growth in merchant transactions.

Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani, who was also present at the event, said Paytm should look at adding support by accepting Aadhaar-enabled Payments System (AePS).

"AePS is a silent success. There are 100 million Indians who use AePS to withdraw money in villages today. So if you can include AePS, it will further add to the proposition," he said.

He also suggested that Paytm work on support for feature phones and develop solutions for those without a phone.