India’s top digital payments firm Paytm on Tuesday has started a credit card with Citigroup, widening its financial product base while giving its banking partner an opportunity to vastly expand its credit card customer base in the country.
The new card should help Paytm stay a step ahead of rivals in the fiercely competitive digital payments market in India where companies from Alphabet Inc-owned Google to Walmart-owned PhonePe, are all scrambling to grab a piece of the digital payments pie that could expand to $500 billion by 2020, according to the Boston Consulting Group.
For Citi, it is a big opportunity to extend its retail presence in India.
Even if only 1 percent of Paytm’s over 300 million customers use the new credit card, that’s a huge number, Chief Executive, Global Consumer Banking at Citi said at a news conference.
He added that there could be tremendous potential for growth of this partnership.
Paytm became a household name across India after New Delhi’s shock move to ban high-value currency notes late in 2016 led to a cash crunch and boosted the use of its electronic wallet.
Its parent One97 Communications has Japan’s SoftBank Group, Alibaba and Berkshire Hathaway as its investors.
The Paytm First Card will offer 1 percent cashback on all transactions, unlike reward points offered by most rival credit cards in India.
Paytm has understood that there is a set of the customer base or customer needs that get fulfilled when you have a credit card or card in the hand,
Paytm has said they have launched a debit card of the bank and today they complete the offering with a credit card partnership with Citibank.
