Paytm Wants To Add 5 Million Merchants In 2017

Paytm, the mobile wallet provider in India, is gearing up to bring on board 5 million merchants.

According to a report by Business Insider, the idea is to add new features and services that will help it reach its goal to have 5 million merchants accept and make digital payments next year. What’s more, Paytm is planning on working with sales and distribution firms to accept Paytm payments from merchants. By doing that, merchants would have another reason to use Paytm, noted the report.

“These new initiatives could significantly broaden Paytm‘s addressable audience and give it further opportunity to grow following major shifts in the Indian payments industry as a result of demonetization where the government removed 500- and 1,000-rupee notes from circulation in November,” the report stated.

In November, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the country’s 500-rupee and 1,000-rupee banknotes were being taken out of circulation, which prompted countless Indian consumers to look for other payment methods and is the reason Paytm is seeing strong growth in recent weeks. Business Insider said Paytm had 1,000 percent growth in money added to its mobile wallets and a 300 percent increase in app downloads over the past three weeks. What’s more, the number of transactions users engage in per week has increased to 18 from three since the demonetization was announced.

The report noted merchants will likely take a page from consumers so they can take advantage of the new movement to digital payments. By setting a goal of 5 million merchants, Paytm is hoping to more than triple its merchant customer count, which currently stands at 1.5 million. Expanding its merchant base is key to Paytm’s growth because more merchants mean more access customers have to use the Paytm option, noted the report.