While mobile payments adoption in the US is slower than most other markets, you need only look at India’s Paytm to see the future of mobile payments.

After India’s demonetization on November 8, 2016, founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma realized that Paytm would have to become more than just a simple mobile wallet. Demonetization was simply the catalyst for change.

Just one year later, Paytm’s wallet users have grown from 120 million to more than 280 million.  its valuation has grown by billions of dollars.

But recent interoperability guidelines imposed by the Indian government will put the brakes on rapid growth for all competitors in the mobile payments industry.

Beyond the Wallet
One97 Communications, the holding company that started Paytm, has had a diversification strategy for a while. As the Economic Times of India reports:

In 2016, the business was split into three parts. One97 retained businesses like mobile content, games and insurance. The wallet moved to Paytm Payments Bank, and e-commerce and retail to Paytm E-commerce (its shareholdings largely mirrors One97, but is not a subsidiary).

Sharma says “There will be five ecosystems in India: Paytm, Amazon, Google, Facebook and the Naspers-Tencent ecosystem that has invested in companies like Make-MyTrip and PayU.”

Big Paytm Growth Plans

The founder of Paytm has set some big goals – growing from 200 million to 500 million users within two years and doubling from five to 10 million new merchants by 2018. He also has a big strategic investor in Alibaba and its payments subsidiary Ant Financial.

E-commerce group Paytm Mall has an ambitious goal of $5 billion in sales in 2017-18. Sharma will have to compete with Amazon and Flipkart, his biggest e-commerce competitors.

He expects future payments industry growth will come from innovations like businesses paying employees and making Paytm relevant in every payments part of daily life in India.

Read more at Economic Times of India…

Author: Douglas Hall, Publisher, PaymentsNEXT