Paytm upgrades cashback strategy, moves to loyalty programme for customers
Paytm, the market leader for payments in India, on Thursday said it had introduced 'Paytm Loyalty Points', which customers can earn from multiple activities within its ecosystem.
Giving an example, the company said cashback offers given to customers on the platform will be accumulated as ‘Paytm Loyalty Points’, and these can be redeemed across online platforms as well as across its five million merchant network on the platform.
With Paytm Loyalty Points, the platform will enable users to earn, accumulate and redeem their points anytime, anywhere.
The company also said that it plans to introduce more features with respect to this offering in the coming year, while looking to reward and encourage its user base to transact digitally. This move will also give more business opportunities to its merchant base.
Speaking on launch of the progamme, Deepak Abbot, Senior Vice President, Paytm, said,
“With Paytm Loyalty Points, we are providing an exciting experience to our users who can now earn and redeem loyalty points while transacting on Paytm or at any major online platform and offline merchant outlets. This will further encourage our users to keep transacting using Paytm, and drive business growth for our merchant partners.”
Just three days back, Paytm had announced that its QR codes will now allow offline merchants to accept unlimited payments directly into their bank accounts at zero charge. Paytm had also said it will invest close to Rs 500 crore in the upcoming calendar year to conduct merchant training and awareness initiatives to expand its reach and acceptance.
Earlier this year, Paytm had again experimented with its cashback strategy, allowing users to get cashback in their Paytm Gold account. The move was aimed to drive further adoption of its wealth management product which allowed users to buy gold for as less as Re 1.
Just this month, PhonePe also launched a similar product, competing with Paytm.
The loyalty programme is not new to Indian payment players, as Paytm’s rival, MobiKwik, also has a similar loyalty programme to improve affinity and users to the platform.
Explaining the same, Upasana Taku, Co-founder of MobiKwik explains,
“Let’s say you do a transaction. Whatever ‘Supercash’ (cashback) you get for every transaction you will be allowed to use 10 percent of it in the next transaction and then after that.”
Introducing loyalty points limits the capital being flushed to attract new customers to payments platforms.
At the time of the launch of its Payments Bank last month, Paytm said it has close to 28 crore (280 million) registered users, 18 crore wallet users, has around 250 crore annual transactions.
