The country is witnessing a new chapter in history being written where every day is seeing a new initiative that further expands the formalisation of the economy, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Tuesday.
“It is a great tribute to entrepreneurship in India that in five years a payment gateway started its operations, grew so rapidly, and expanded its activities to include online banking,” Mr Jaitley said while inaugurating Paytm’s payments bank.
“This is a new chapter in history being written that almost every day some such initiative is taking place that is increasing the formalisation of the economy,” he added. Paytm has 28 crore registered users, recorded 250 crore annual transactions from 50 lakh merchants, with transaction value of of ₹80,000 crore, said Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Paytm founder.
The payment bank facility will allow users to open zero balance accounts, and conduct transactions without any sort of fee. Deposits in the savings account will get 4% interest.
“Aadhaar has been a boon for us as the cost of customer acquisition and KYC hass greatly reduced,” Mr Sharma said, adding that so far the company has 1.2 lakh biometric devices and conducts more than 2.5 lakh KYCs per day.
The company is also launching a ‘Paytm ka ATM’ facility, which works on the banking correspondent model, where a customer can approach an authorised correspondent, transfer money to their Paytm account, and receive cash in return
