Merchants registered with e-wallet Paytm will now be able to accept all major debit and credit cards as the company launched point of sale solutions (POS) facility on its app today. This will allow the merchants accept all card payments including Rupay, Visa, MasterCard and Maestro through their Paytm app.
Under ‘Accept Payment’ icon on new updated app, they can self-declare their details and give bank account details to start receiving payments instantly. The mobile payment platform will charge a zero transaction fee for the same till 31st December, 2016.
Paytm’s CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma said that about 10 million Paytm POS apps are expected to be downloaded by this weekend. In contrast, India has just about 1.4 million card swiping machines and Paytm will overtake the overall POS market if its solution succeeds. The POS facility will be available on Paytm’s updated app.
“There are about 550 million people with debit cards in India. We just don’t have enough POS machines. We expect about Rs 30,000 crore gross transaction value on Paytm platform by the year end,” Sharma said. The app-based POS will help traditional businesses and merchants to reduce costs as it does not require any monthly rentals for accepting card payments. Card swipe machines charge a monthly rental besides transaction fee.
“We are on a mission to democratise 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 digitisation of our economy,”
Sharma added. Over 850,000 offline merchants including taxi, autos, petrol pumps, grocery shops, restaurants, coffee shops, multiplexes, parking, pharmacies, hospitals, kirana shops and newspaper vendors accept Paytm as a payment mode. It also claims to have a user base of over 150 million customers.
The company is adding about 5 lakh new customers every day. The company’s investors include China’s e-commerce firm Alibaba Group and its affiliate Ant Financial, venture capital firm Saif Partners, Sapphire Venture, Mediatek and Silicon Valley Bank.
Source: moneycontrol
