Paytm partners with IRCTC for ticket booking, plans to touch 25K daily ticket mark within 6 months

Mobile centric marketplace and payment enabler Paytm has announced a partnership with Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) to offer the Paytm wallet as a payment option on online train ticket booking. The move will enable users to use wallet instead of plastic based cards while booking railway tickets.

This is a big deal for Paytm which got an approval from the Reserve Bank of India last year to float a semi-closed wallet. Over the next six months, the Noida-based company is looking at 25,000+ tickets in a day using Paytm wallet on IRCTC platform.

Speaking to YourStory, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Founder of Paytm, said, “This is a major partnership for us as it allows users to book train tickets via Paytm wallet. IRCTC is the second biggest consumer-transacting platform today after Paytm.”

Paytm had surpassed the volume of IRCTC in November last year. Currently, it has over 60 million wallet holders and users can shop and pay with Paytm wallet across 21,000 merchants now. Integrating with platforms like IRCTC would help it expand its reach in tier II and tier III markets.

Recommended Read: Paytm crosses IRCTC’s transaction volume, to raise funds by year end

At present, it does more than 60 million orders of various digital and physical goods every month. When asked about the number of wallet holders currently using it for booking train ticket, Vijay added, “We have just launched and it is early days yet. Over the coming month, we will launch multiple user communication initiatives to drive awareness of this feature.”

Paytm has been coming up with a string of updates. Last week, it joined in the hyper-local game by starting grocery delivery in Bangalore.

Most recently, Paytm came with the Seller App with a zero commission model. What this means is that sellers on the platform don’t need to give a commission to Paytm on sales. The move seems to be a game-changing deal for Paytm, and other marketplaces like Flipkart and Snapdeal will face the heat on the merchant acquisition front.

The partnership will also drive wallet users in tier II & III cities where plastic card adoption is not encouraging. “IRCTC is already recognised and trusted across the length and breadth of the country. This partnership will provide an additional use case to new/existing users across India to use Paytm wallet for their convenience,” stated Vijay.

Paytm-IRCTC partnership is a win-win deal for both parties. While IRCTC processes 180 million transactions every year, Paytm has a strong base of 60 million wallet users who can use its wallet instead of using credit/debit card details.

Prior to Paytm, telecom major Vodafone underwent strategic partnership with IRCTC to facilitate online booking of railway tickets through mobile phones with Vodafone M-Pesa as a payment option.

Update: Paytm has just rolled out its new wallet for iOS