UPI Lite has gained traction on Paytm, says fintech company

In an online session held at its Noida headquarters, Paytm Payments Bank chief executive Surinder Chawla spoke about the adoption of UPI Lite as a payment mode among Paytm’s 90 million monthly transacting users. Abhishek Madan, head of UPI at Paytm, said once the auto addition feature on UPI Lite goes live he expects more people to come on board. “It will operate as a loop, one loads money and uses it and then it automatically loads money again,” he said.

The session which was attended by Paytm’s founder & CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma and Bhavesh Gupta, chief operating officer Paytm, elaborated on new features around quick payments through UPI Lite, bill splitting, creating personal identifiers, chat features and RuPay credit cards on Paytm app.

During peak hours there is a massive load on the UPI ecosystem and with Lite the success rates on UPI payments can be pushed up to as high as 99.9%, said Gupta.

Sharma added that with no pin needed, smaller ticket sized UPI transactions can be made quickly on Paytm.

On the scope of adding new customers on Paytm Payment Bank, Chawla added that there are still some clarifications pending from the regulator post which they should be able to launch. In November 2022, the country’s central bank had asked Paytm Payments Bank to pause adding new customers till directions from the regulator.

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Currently, Paytm is barred from onboarding new merchants for its online payment service, even as it is still in the process of securing a payment aggregator licence from the RBI.Gupta said that with less than Rs 2,000 transactions imposing zero charges on the merchant, it has the potential to increase the acceptance network of RuPay credit cards overall. “ In terms of new issuance, RuPay credit card numbers are going up significantly,” he said.

Paytm Payments Bank presently can’t issue credit cards but Gupta said they will launch a co-branded RuPay credit card with an issuing partner very soon.

In the second phase, NPCI is also building UPI auto pay through RuPay credit cards. This will enable recurring transactions like OTT payments and other subscription charges which are put on UPI Auto Pay mandate to be done through the credit card as a funding source.

Paytm has seen a steady growth in payment volume with gross merchandise value in the March quarter hitting Rs 3.6 lakh crore. In the March quarter, Paytm recorded Rs 1,467 crore in terms of revenue from its payments business with losses coming in at Rs 168 crore.