With 1B transactions a quarter, why is Paytm focusing on Money Transfers now?

Financial major Paytm, earlier today, said it has revamped its app to personalise the user experience. While doing so, the app has increased focus on Money Transfers, offering instant transfers from a user’s Paytm Payments Bank account, Paytm Wallet or any other bank account, to any bank account at zero percent fee.

With this revamp, Paytm aims exponential growth in money transfers this year. Paytm also claims that the new app is more personalised with relevant categories popping up based on the customer's usage. The company has been aggressively educating users to link their bank accounts, and experience instant transfers using the Paytm app.

This will address the money transfer need for a variety of use cases like house rent, supplier or wholesale dues, tuition fee, to freelancers, salaries of unorganised workforce, and peer-to-peer payments, among others.

The continued focus on money transfers has aided the company in taking the new KYC norms in its stride, allowing it to sustain the growth in transactions.

Speaking on the development, Kiran Vasireddy, COO of Paytm said,

“We are very excited to introduce the new revamped interface on Paytm App. In continuation of our constant effort to provide our customers with the best user experience, the new design is refreshing and has upgrades to some of the most important flows including Money Transfers."

“This year, we are aiming for an exponential growth in Money Transfer transactions by transforming payments done in the unorganised sector - this will include freelancers, tuition fee, house rent, salaries of unorganized workforce and others into direct bank transfers using the Paytm app,” added Kiran.

Earlier, Paytm had stated that close to 60 percent of its QR usage comes from non-metros. The new QR also allows users to add users to their contacts and start a chat.

Further, with the option of paying using Paytm wallet, credit or debit cards, as well as any bank account, the company has already achieved a run rate of 1 billion transactions per quarter.

For Android users, the update is expected to release later in the afternoon.

The WhatsApp Debacle

Why is Paytm putting Money Transfers in the spotlight all of a sudden?

Paytm answers a part of the question by hinting at money transfers to be a lucrative use case for itself to overcome the KYC obstacle. In October, RBI made it mandatory for PPIs including mobile-wallet operators, to make all accounts fully KYC-compliant by December 31, 2017. The deadline was later extended to February 28.

This particular move has affected players across the board resulting in 30-40 percent dip in wallet usage.

Another part of the answer lies in the recent controversy around WhatsApp.

The messaging giant’s recent foray into payments will actively solve for the P2P or the domestic remittances used case, which is a huge used case for the population including migrant workers. Even Google with its payment app Tez seems to be catering actively to get a pie of this market.

To speak about the opportunity, the Economic Survey of 2017 pegged domestic remittances to be a Rs 1.5 trillion economy per annum.

And Paytm, with the latest app update, is trying to capitalise as much of the growing opportunity while trying to spread its user net to even rural economies.