Paytm secures insurance brokerage licence, plans to leverage offline merchant base
Paytm aims to offer insurance products across four categories, including two-wheeler, four-wheeler, health, and life, and will leverage its 16 million-strong merchant partner base to sell its products across India.
One97 Communications Ltd (OCL), which owns payments and financial services platform Paytm, on Tuesday said wholly-owned subsidiary Paytm Insurance Broking Private Limited (PIBPL) has secured a licence to sell life and non-life insurance from the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI).
This licence will allow the company to roll out insurance products to millions of consumers across India.
Through PIBPL, Paytm aims to offer insurance products across four categories, including two-wheeler, four-wheeler, health and life, and will leverage its 16 million-strong merchant partner base to sell insurance products all over the country, apart from online initiatives.
Paytm said it recently surrendered its 'corporate agency’ licence to obtain the brokerage licence. The company also said it had tied up with 20 of the leading insurance firms in India, and would integrate with 30 more companies over the next few weeks.
Speaking on the development, Amit Nayyar, President, Paytm, said,
"Our entry into Insurance Broking is in line with our commitment to broaden our footprint into financial services, and offer numerous and customised choices to millions of our customers. This would enable us to offer a wider suite of product offerings from a large set of insurance partners.”
In addition to this, Amit said Paytm Insurance would going to give millions of their users the option of buying bite-sized insurance products at competitive prices.
“As a company, we fully rely and trust on our merchant partners, selling insurance products and augmenting their income options while driving penetration," he added.
Paytm’s journey in the insurance space started over three years back when it entered the corporate agency business. The company started by offering appropriate attachment products on Paytm transactions to evolve into a marketplace for all insurance products.
PIBPL is also expected to provide policy management and claim services for customers.
At present, Paytm is in the process of shortlisting merchant partners who would be trained to become Point-of -Sales Persons and plans to rope in two lakh such persons this year.
(Edited by Teja Lele Desai)
