India’s leading mobile payment company Paytm is on a head count expansion spree to bring on board 2,000 executives in South India for its merchant acquisition game plan.
In an interaction with DH, Paytm Vice President Kunal Abhishek said Paytm has been adding over 1.3 lakh merchants in South India month-on-month, which helps the company in creating the ecosystem that will drive cashless transactions further.
“Paytm has already opened offices in 10 cities across South India and has about 1,500 employees helping in merchant acquisition. We will hire another 2,000 executives by the end of 2017, to onboard merchants and Paytm partners,” he said.
Abhishek said the company is planning to come up with a Paytm partner ecosystem across the country. “We have already begun establishing the Paytm partner network in more than 20 districts in Karnataka. These partners will help in making Paytm products and services easily available to consumers,” he said.
Abhishek said the company has made it clear that the government decision to make universal QR code, Aadhaar enabled payment and universal payment gateway will strengthen the digital payment ecosystem and will help Paytm further enhance its business prospects.
“Right now, we have around five lakh merchant partners and 20 crore wallet users on our platform as there is a shift in customer buying behaviour. By the end of this year we will have over one million merchants in just South India. The government’s digital push may help us achieve this target even earlier,” said Abhishek.
Apart from focusing on urban centres, Paytm has signed MoUs with various government agencies such as CSC-SPV and has been leveraging volunteers such as VLEs (village level entrepreneurs) to bring merchants onboard in rural centres as well.
“The south is an important market for Paytm and we are deeply focused on expanding our network of merchants in each district. We are partnering with major electricity providers, highway toll plazas, shopping malls, educational institutes and hospitals, among others to provide seamless digital payment through the Paytm app.
We have already onboarded APSRTC, where travellers can book tickets from the payment counter using Paytm. On similar lines, we have started a pilot with KSRTC and BMTC in Bengaluru,” he said.
