Abhishek Securities

  Digital financial services platform Paytm on December 15 launched a 24x7 RTGS facility to support the companies that make high-value transactions. It also enables businesses to make bulk and instant money transfers to their employees, vendors & partners. Customers can instantly make bulk payments to Bank Accounts, UPI addresses, and Paytm Wallets through Paytm Payouts' APIs and Paytm for Business Dashboard. Paytm Payout is the only service provider that offers seamless round the clock money transfers through Wallet, UPI, IMPS, NEFT & RTGS. The company has made this announcement after Reserve Bank of India (RBI) decision to make RTGS facility 24x7. This service saves time and resources and it is beneficial for SME & large enterprises who use it to adopt an automated payment mechanism. "RBI's move supports commerce in the country and enhances ease of doing business recently allowed the transfer of funds through Real-Time Gross Settlement (R...

  Payments operators , Google Pay  and PhonePe, seem to have a stranglehold on the unified payments interface (UPI) market in India. According to October data from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), published for the first time, Google Pay accounted for 857.81 million transactions, while PhonePe came in second with 839.88 million transactions. Together, the two apps accounted for about 81% of the market, the data shows. The data said  ₹ 1,65,654.71 crore worth of transactions happened through Google Pay in October, while  ₹ 1,68,085.06 crore worth of transactions took place through PhonePe. This made up for about 86% of total transaction value on UPI in October. While the data compiled was for the period before WhatsApp was allowed to roll out its payments feature in India, the platform seems to have barely made an impact during that period. According to NPCI’s data, only 70,000 transactions worth  ₹ 9.32 crore happened through WhatsApp Pay in Oc...

  2020 has been a busy year for Paytm.   Despite COVID-19, the fintech giant hit new and significant milestones in its pursuit of financial inclusion for a billion Indians. From  getting deeper into the insurance sector to expanding its wealth management offerings,  the company has foraged hard for domains it can expand into against the background of a global pandemic, and its efforts have paid off in this ever-changing, uncertainty-ridden world we now live in.   Paytm has said in the past - and it keeps recapitulating as often as it can - that  financial inclusion is at the heart of everything it does,  whether it is providing a full-stack digital savings bank account for India’s 190 million unbanked habitants, or helping 63 million MSMEs get access to institutional financial services such as loans and bookkeeping facilities.   What drove this kind of concerted effort that ultimately helped Paytm pull off the growth it did in 2020 was...

  Indian digital payments leader Paytm has denied reports that one of its majority shareholders Ant Group may sell its entire 30% (worth $4.8 billion) stake in the startup. A  Reuters report  citing sources stated that amid growing tensions between India-China, Ant Group was mulling a possible exit from the Vijay Shekhar Sharma-led company. The Indian government has so far banned almost  220 Chinese apps  this year. However, a Paytm spokesperson denied the report. "The information is absolutely false and misleading. There has been no discussion with any of our major shareholders ever, nor any plans, about selling their stake or becoming the controlling shareholder. Our mission is to empower half a billion Indians with digital financial services and pursue the vast opportunity presented by the digital financial revolution in our country. We are seeing a dramatic increase in revenues and acceleration of our path to breakeven,” a Paytm spokesperson told Business In...

  Fintech major Paytm on Tuesday said it will waive all charges on merchant transactions, and enable its merchant partners to accept payments from Paytm wallet, UPI apps and RuPay cards at zero charges. Paytm will absorb Rs 600 crore in MDR charges annually by banks and other charges to support micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) during the ongoing pandemic, according to a statement. This would help ensure that these merchants have adequate liquidity to expand their businesses, it added. "This initiative will benefit more than 17 million merchants on Paytm ecosystem who use Paytm All-in-One QR, Paytm Soundbox and Paytm All-in-One Android POS to accept payments from their customers," the statement said. It added that merchants will also have the power to choose whether they want to receive payments directly into their bank accounts or into their Paytm wallet. The company has been promoting acceptance of payments through all methods, including Paytm Wallet, UPI, RuPay, ...

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) on Thursday raised nearly Rs 82 crore by way of private placement of 4.63 per cent of its equity shares to 19 new banks, non-banking entities and the parent companies of payment systems aggregators. “This broad basing exercise was done to further diversify and distribute the NPCI shareholding to a larger set of the RBI (Reserve Bank of India) regulated entities and categories of payment industry participants. NPCI made an offer for the private placement to 131 RBI regulated entities, out of which 19 evinced interest and were allotted shares in NPCI,” the not-for-profit initiative, which runs and manages the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), said. Though traditional banks such as the State Bank of India, Union Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, Canara Bank, HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank remain the bigger players for now, other older players such as Standard Chartered Bank, Dhanlaxmi Bank, and IDFC First Bank have found seats at the expa...

  Digital payments company Paytm has announced that Paytm merchants can now receive unlimited payments through Paytm Wallet, UPI and Rupay cards at zero percent fee. The move is said to benefit more than 17 million merchants on the digital payments platform as they can now transfer money to banks without any deductions. The company also said that the development would provide merchants with a "single point of reconciliation" for all their payments. That means merchants will no longer require multiple QRs at their counters to receive money from regular users. The company is a press note states that business accounts can now select 'all-in-one QR' to accept payments from Paytm wallet, Paytm UPI, or any other UPI app. Speaking about the development, Kumar Aditya, Paytm senior vice president said, "We are empowering our merchant partners across the country to accept wallet payments and get them directly into their bank account without worrying about the charges. The ...

  The telecom regulator has imposed a penalty on Bharti Airtel Ltd, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL), Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd, among others, as they did not respond appropriately to a show-cause notice issued due to failure in block phishing activities on their networks. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has also fined Vodafone Idea Ltd, Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) and Tata Teleservices in a case pertaining to One97 Communications Ltd, the parent of fintech company Paytm. In June, One97 had moved the Delhi High Court against telcos, Trai and the Centre for not blocking those who were defrauding its customers by phishing activities over mobile networks. BSNL has been slapped with the highest fine of  ₹ 30 crore, according to an affidavit filed by the Trai at the Delhi High Court. Mint has reviewed a copy of the affidavit. Almost 60-70% of the fraudulent messages and phishing attempts to customers have been on the BSNL network, according to industry offi...

  Millions of Indians continued the age-old tradition of buying gold during Diwali this year with a new-age twist. Consumers took to the relatively new digital gold category to avoid trips to crowded markets during the pandemic; that they could buy without a minimum purchase restriction added to the attractiveness of digital gold as the price of the precious metal hovered near a record high. Digital payment firms such as Paytm and PhonePe, which sold digital gold, reported strong demand emerging from smaller towns and cities this year, in addition to metros. The companies saw digital gold sales rise substantially over Dhanteras and Diwali last year. Flipkart-owned PhonePe, for instance, reported an over sixfold jump in the volume of digital gold sold on its platform in the month leading to Diwali from a year ago. Rival Paytm said sales volume jumped 86% during the week of Diwali celebrations from a year earlier. For PhonePe, 60% of gold customers came from smaller towns and cities ...