With 186 million users as of December 2017, India’s most popular digital payments platform Paytm has witnessed an increase in the customers from semi-urban and rural parts of the country. Paytm believes that the rural people are using its service more than in metro cities or urban regions.
The digital company Paytm that works on cashless transactions through its smartphone application and QR code solutions claims to have its strong influential existence in more than 3 lakh villages in the country.
It also affirms to have engaged over 30 lakh merchants accepting digital payments across villages and small towns like Kangra, Angul, Unnao, Kakkanav, Chitra Durga, Giri Nagar, Virudhu Nagar and many more. The company said that the digital payments usage in these areas was 20% more than in metro cities and has grown by 40% in terms of coverage of geographies.
Kiran Vasireddy, the chief operating officer said, “True development of an economy can only take place when villages and smaller towns that are at the very grassroots levels, join the digital revolution. We are excited to see an increasing adoption of digital payments by our users and merchants in these areas. We will continue our efforts to reach out to people in every village and town in our country and educate them about the convenience of digital payments.”
REASONS FOR THE BOOST IN USAGE:
1)‘My Payments’ feature – With the entry of ‘My Payments’ feature on the Paytm app, the day-to-day and reappearing payments such as house rent, maid/driver’s salary, milk and newspaper vendor payments etc have become much simpler and easy.
2) ‘Merchant Referral’ feature – The digital payment platform had also introduced a ‘Merchant Referral’ feature which allowed small and medium merchant (SME) businesses to accept payments from any bank account into their own bank accounts at no charges. This feature has been mainly responsible for the boost in the usage of the digital payment method.
It can clearly be witnessed how rural India is growing and companies like Paytm have a hand in their development. With the increasing use and development of technology, India’s rural population is also growing and making efforts in the economic development of the country.