Paytm says no to cashbacks on P2P transactions, gives incentives to offline merchants

Paytm is looking to shift its focus from cashback strategy for 'peer-to-peer Unified Payments Interface' (UPI) transactions to offline merchant payments at retail kirana stores in order to expand its reach and discourage people from using cash. The digital payments company has decided to push back from incentive led P2P UPI transactions and partner with 2 crore  kirana stores in order to enable them to accept digital mode of transaction.

ac"Paytm will be investing money in offline merchant expansion instead of driving incentive led P2P transactions. Our offline merchants create high-frequency usage and an important use-case for Paytm consumers. By investing in real merchant payments even in the remotest part of our country, we will help expand the vision of Digital India to the grassroots," said Deepak Abbot, Sr. Vice President - Paytm.

Paytm is already in a leadership position in the tier 1, 2 and 3 markets and aims to go deeper to expand the digital payments eco-system in India. The company has decided to move away from the P2P UPI payments as it is usually done to gain extra money which is, in turn, detrimental to the cashless system. Also, on Paytm, the UPI users are already the ones who have been using a host of Paytm services for long and they do not require cash backs to make the payments.

In order to help the merchants further and give them better access to capital, Paytm is also planning to invest on lending and insurance, rather than on P2P payments.

Recently, Paytm claimed that it has largest number of offline merchants and digital services. It also said that it has 1.2 crore merchant partners accepting payments through Paytm QR, which accepts all digital payment instruments such as UPI, wallets, cards and net banking.

Edited By: Udit Verma

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