Paytm, India’s largest mobile payments company and an e-commerce platform, has said that post demonetisation of Rs.500 and Rs.1000 notes, it has touched a record five million transactions a day, against Rs.2.5-3 million transactions earlier.
With banks and ATMs unable to meet a high demand for new currency, many consumers have turned to mobile wallet services. Riding on this wave, the mobile wallet major expects to process transactions worth Rs.24,000 crore by the end of this year.
“Led by unprecedented growth in offline payments, Paytm has touched a record 5 million transactions a day and is on the way to process over Rs.24,000 crore,” Paytm said in a statement.
The company said it had registered a 700 per cent increase in overall traffic and 1,000 per cent growth in the amount of money added to the Paytm accounts over the last couple of days.
The number of app downloads went up 300 per cent, while the number of transactions per user went up from 3 transactions to over 18 transactions in a week, Paytm said.
The highest increase in usage was seen in Chennai, followed by Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Bangalore. While overall maximum demand was coming from Delhi, followed by Bangalore, Pune, Hyderabad and Mumbai, it said.
Kiran Vasireddy, Sr. vice president – Paytm, said: “We have set bolder targets in merchant acquisition, and are aiming to target 5 million merchants by the end of the financial year.”
Over 8,50,000 offline merchants across India accept Paytm. “This is a historic opportunity for India to skip the plastic generation and leapfrog to mobile payments. We also urge banks to reduce the charges for adding money to wallets and facilitate this shift in consumer behaviour. This will ensure that every merchant, big or small can accept mobile payments,” Nitin Misra, Sr vice president – Paytm, said.
