Paytm Tops 100M Downloads

India-based digital payments company Paytm announced Wednesday (Dec. 27) that it had surpassed the 100 million downloads mark on the Google Play Store. In a company blog post, Paytm said the milestone occurred during the second week of December and makes Paytm the first payments app in India to surpass the 100 million downloads market.

“We are overwhelmed with the 100 million downloads mark, reaching this milestone is a testimony to the efforts of the incredible team at Paytm,” said Deepak Abbot, senior vice president at Paytm. “This achievement will offer us a strong boost as we work towards our goal of making India a digital-first economy. We are charting the next chapter of our growth from being a pioneer in mobile payments to becoming a mobile-first financial services company, which offers banking, lending, insurance and payments.”

The announcement comes just weeks after the company said it not only wants to become the world’s largest digital bank, but also to evolve into a financial services company providing a slew of services like wealth management and trading. In an interview with Bloomberg published Tuesday (Nov. 28), Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma said the company is aiming to have 500 million bank accounts.

“We are unveiling our money market fund, launching our debit card and we’ll have the capabilities to allow enterprises to open business accounts,” Sharma said. “Digital payments was our entry point, we want to become a vertically-integrated financial services company.”

While Paytm Payments Bank can accept deposits and remittances, it cannot lend money to its customers. The bank will be the country’s first mobile-only bank that does not charge fees for online transactions and will not require a minimum balance. The bank is majority owned by Sharma, but telecommunications firm One97 Communications has a 49 percent stake. According to Sharma, the company can get around regulatory obstacles to offer lending by working in partnership with One97, which will launch a credit card and offer monthly installment-based loans.

“We will launch share trading and insurance products very soon,” he added. “We want to become an internet-agei financial services company.”