- Brand Study

Paytm serves as India’s largest platform for mobile payments, e-wallet, and e- commerce. Hence, the main intent of this project was a
holistic brand study to understand and analyse the business model of PayTm. With the growing competitors in the market, it is quite
challenging to stay number #1. Therefore, the objective is to recommend ideas for a better brand positioning.

2015 - Introduced education

fees and added more categories
PayTm’s Journey to recharges and bill payments.
Also, powered the payment
gateway for Indian Railways

2016 - Launched tickets for

movies, events, amusement parks
and flight ticket booking facilities
Founded in 2010 and started along with PayTm QR code. Later, in
off with prepaid mobile and DTH the year they launched rail bookings
recharges and gift card.

2014 - Introduced
PayTm Wallet

2017 - India's first payment app to

cross over 100 million app
downloads. Launched Paytm gold,
Paytm Payments Bank and
Introduced postpaid bill
integrated with BHIM UPI
payments in 2013

2018 – Allowed merchants to

accept Paytm, UPI and Card
payments directly into their bank
accounts at 0% charge. Further,
launched Mutual Funds for
investment.

Turn over for PayTm’s

Business Model Canvas
 KEY
KEY CUSTOMER
ACTIVITIES VALUE CUSTOMER
PARTNERS SEGMENTS
 Intermediary PROPOSITION RELATION
 Enabling instant
 Vendors for bill Services
 Connects with the  Indian Customers
recharges and Bill
payment, payment  Security to the  Vendors offering
customers via
payment payment gateway
gateway partners et customer’s accounts
website or app, no  Offline vendors.
 Investment via
cetra and details.
direct connect ion
Paytm Gold, Mutual
 Vendors for  Common platform
Fund.
recharges like
 Ease in money
mobile operators,
KEY transfer. Enabling CHANNELS
DTH, Cable et cetra
RESOURCES
loan facility.
 Banks maintaining
 User friendly Website  Good deals on  Paytm’s Website
Paytm’s escrow
and App products listed on and Vendor
account.
 Licence from RBI Websites.
Paytm mall, making
 Payments in
shopping easy by offline market.
just a click away.  Demonetisation
 C2C transactions

COST STRUCTURE REVENUE STRUCTURE

 Extremely cost driven in nature as the cost is higher than  Commissions from Vendors/transactions
the revenue made on the first or even third time. The  Advertisements
largest cost being the compliance requirements from fraud  Interest on Escrow Account
and security of customers.
BRAND 
FACTORS

Digital Wallet

UPI based transaction

Security/ Authenticity
of Virtual Payment
Address

Internet Connection
requirement
Recharges/Bill
Payments/ Market
Places

Offers payment
gateway

Cashback
 Integration with BHIM UPI

Paytm announced the integration with BHIM UPI

DISADVANTAGES
in 2017. The aim was to broaden its user base to
The cashback received on the transaction do not hit
200 million and help expand the usability of the the bank account, instead remains in the e-wallet.
mobile wallet. In October 2017, RBI directed
Not an innovative idea as there are other merchant
companies and banks to make KYC- compliant
aggregators already using UPI.
prepaid payment instruments like mobile wallets
within the next six months. Accordingly, Paytm
integrated with BHIM UPI to save the customers
from the discomfort of filling up the Know Your
ADVANTAGES
Customer form to keep their e-wallets
Lets you transfer money directly from one bank
functioning. However, in my view, the move isn’t account to another.
substantial because large wallet firms have a high
No requirement of loading the digital wallet in
number of merchant integrations, UPI-based order to make the payments to the vendors.
apps, including BHIM working on the same.
No KYC requirements to be followed
 In customer’s words

This is Joshua, a 19-year-old college going Tanvi is 25 years old and is working with a Mariam is a 60-year-old passionate home Abhinav is a freelance designer who
student. He receives fixed pocket money company. Often in offices, there are baker who bakes delicious cakes. She accepts payment mainly via UPI on PayTm
of INR 5,000/- every month from his several occasions where contributions are takes her payments in either cash or via or PhonePe. He also accepts digital money
parents. Out of this, he keeps INR 1000 made to celebrate the same. Payments are PayTm. Mariam is comfortable using through Paytm as an option for the clients
in cash and the rest is transferred to his mostly made on the digital platform. She PayTm, however, is a little dissatisfied as who cannot transfer through UPI or net
Paytm wallet. He enjoys using Paytm as he enjoys using UPI on Paytm, as she can the money in the e-wallet can only be used banking. He uses his e-wallet balance to
has limited access to his bank account and avoid loading her wallet before making a for payments via Paytm. Given her age, make his monthly bill payments. However,
he is flattered by the big cash back and transaction. However, given a choice she she does not trust the security of the UPI a certain amount of balance remains idle
discounts that Paytm has to offer. prefers Google Pay over PayTm, as the system and transfers the digital money to in his wallet. According to Abhinav, it gets
According to him, the cash back and offers cashback earned by her, directly gets her bank account at the cost of 4% that difficult to keep a track on the amount
on Paytm makes his college life fun and credited to her bank account. Paytm charges to transfer the wallet received in e-wallet. This is because the
outgoing. balance to a bank account. Mariam doesn't digital money remains in the e-wallet and
like to recover her losses from her limits the usage of the same.
customers but would be happy if the
transfer fee cuts down by at least 2%.
 Recommendations
2. QUARTERLY INTEREST ON PAYTM WALLET 3. A PERSONALIZED CUSTOMER ANNUAL
1. MINIMUM WALLET BALANCE
REPORT
Currently, Paytm charges 4% of the total Currently, Paytm does not provide any interest on A personalized Customer Annual Report (CAR) can be an
transaction value in order to transfer to a bank the balance as appearing on the wallet. incredible marketing strategy for Brand recognition
account. i.e Wallet balance = Rs. 200/-, a 4% and recall. A CAR can typically show the infographic
fee will be charged to transfer the balance to the However, by introducing a quarterly interest on the Income & Expenditure and Balancesheet of a customer
bank account. Therefore, in total, a customer wallet balance at say 1% at the end of each quarter. by the end of each year.
transacts – PayTm can increase the customer base as, any extra
monetary benefit is always lucrative to the The aim here, would be to create awareness and develop
Rs 200 + Rs 8 (4%) = Rs. 208/- on an extra cost customers. a sense of curiosity among the customers to have
of Rs.8. insights on the past activities carried out on the
To explain this, let’s consider the situation of customer’s Paytm account.
Joshua, from the foregoing personas, who is a
college student. It is given that, Joshua receives a A specimen of Income and Expenditure can look
With minimum wallet balance (MWB), a monthly allowance of Rs. 4,000/- on PayTm wallet. somewhat like -
customer has to keep a MWB as prescribed by
PayTM and the remaining money can be We can safely assume that by end of each month,
transferred to the bank with 0% charges. For he has some balance remaining in his wallet. Hello, Navya! Here’s your Income & Expenditure
instance: If the MWB to be maintained is Rs. account for the Financial Year 17-18
100/- and the wallet has Rs. 200/-, the Let’s assume that on the first month he saves Rs.
customer has to keep Rs. 100/- to maintain the 100, on the second month the cumulative savings
MWB in order to transfer the remaining Rs. 100/- goes up to Rs. 150 and on the third it goes up to EXPENDITURE INCOME
at 0% charges Rs.165. On the end of third month, Joshua shall
receive an interest on the wallet balance at 1%
which will increase his total wallet balance from Rs.
165 to Rs. 167 (approximately).

It is relevant to note that, MWB is required only Your flight to Bali in 20% Cashback on your
when a customer wants to transfer the wallet flight tickets and a
money to the bank account. This is because the
the month of March!
This monetary benefit will attract more customers lifetime of memories!!
MWB will be beneficial to PayTm in order to earn
interest on escrow account rather than having a and help PayTm to earn on the interest rates of the
zero wallet balance. On the other hand it is escrow account.
beneficial for the customer, as the customers can
transfer money to their accounts at no extra This will add on to Paytm’s customer value proposition
cost. for having a personal touch.

Paytm is India’s largest mobile payments, e-wallet, and e-commerce platform. It is interesting to note that merchant integrators are on a spree of growing, mainly
on a UPI based platform, making it easy for the customers to transact from anywhere. In such a fast paced market, it is needless to say that PayTm has tough
competitions. To remain at the top of the game, PayTm should keep repositioning itself by bringing in more customer centric value propositions from time to time.