Paytm to invest another Rs5,000 cr; integrates BHIM on platform

Paytm, India's biggest online payments and mobile wallet firm, plans to invest another Rs5,000 crore in the business over the next three years founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma said in a media interview.

Sharma also played down competition from deep-pocketed global giants including Google, saying he believes that the only competition to Paytm is itself. He said the entry of global companies would lead to fast standardisation of products and better consumer understanding.

Sharma also mentioned that Paytm has invested more than Rs5,000 crore in mobile payments and that they will continue to be the largest investor in the country in this segment.

Paytm has also integrated the government's mobile payments interface BHIM UPI on its platform. Using BHIM UPI will widen Paytm's customer base and will increase the usability of the app.

Nevertheless, Paytm is likely to face stiff competition from Google Tez and Flipkart's PhonePe. Both these platforms have been working with UPI for a while now.

Several international companies have also entered India's payments market since demonetisation last year. But Paytm has a huge advantage as it currently has around 200 million users, while Mobikwik has 65 million and PhonePe has 45 million users.

Paytm users will now be able to pay and receive money over BHIM UPI. It will also allow existing users of BHIM to connect their accounts with BHIM API on Paytm. New users would also be able to easily create BHIM accounts on Paytm.

Since its launch in December, BHIM UPI has been downloaded over 16 million times. Its popularity can be attributed to the fact that UPIs help users transfer funds form one bank to another with no additional cost and are faster than NEFT, as it does not need to wait to add a beneficiary and provide details like IFSC codes. It is swifter than mobile wallets also as one does not have to transfer money to the wallet first.

According to a report in Mint, Paytm will train its 5 million merchant partners to create BHIM UPI IDs. Merchants will also be allowed to add multiple bank accounts with one Paytm BHIM UPI account.