Paytm eyes onboarding 10 mn merchants

Bengaluru: Paytm on Tuesday said it aims to add close to 10 million merchants to its platform over the next 12-18 months as it brings new features to its payments' platform.

The company, which has introduced a new all-in-one payment gateway and business solutions as well as an Android-based point of sale (POS) machine, currently has over 16 million merchants across unorganised and organised sectors.

"Over the past 18 months, we have invested a lot of time in understanding the needs of small businesses around digital payments. We will continue to bring in features and solutions to address their challenges," Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma said. He added that the new features and products launched on Tuesday will provide an opportunity to add 10 million merchants over the next 12-18 months. Merchants are looking for solutions that not only support acceptance of all kinds of payments (UPI, card and wallets), but also allow easy reconciliation, he said.

Sharma added that Paytm's Android-based POS machine will be "about 20-30 per cent cheaper and more comprehensive than competition". Of the 26 billion digital transactions in the country in 2019, about 15 billion were made to merchants with debit cards and wallets accounting for a major chunk, he said.