Paytm: The wonder wallet
Paytm started as a mobile wallet to simplify payments. Today it is aiding financial inclusion
Image: Amit Verma
Somewhere in Noida’s Sector 5, in a nondescript building on a noisy, dusty, mosquito-infested road that’s too narrow to be called a highway but too wide to qualify as a street, where rickshaws and pedestrians compete with speeding SUVs, a revolution is churning. And it’s spreading.
Outside the building, it took a while for Aas, in his Hyundai Eon UberGo, to find me. I didn’t get around to asking him his last name. He was a tad dismayed that my default payment option was Paytm. “Cash karte to haat mein kuch mil jaata… aaj jeb to pura khali hain, sabhi customer ne Paytm kar diya aaj,” he said, lamenting the fact that I, like all his customers for that day, had selected the Paytm option, leaving him without any cash. Uber’s tie up with Paytm in November 2014 helps passengers walk away at the end of a ride, with the fare being deducted automatically from their Paytm account.
Contributing to Aas’s dismay was the Rs 100-per-cab toll he sometimes has to dish out while heading into Delhi from Noida. If the personnel at the toll booth didn’t find his monthly pass valid, he could either argue, or pay up and move on. Because he made this trip at least a few times every day, Aas could do without the hassle.
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