Today Paytm‘s newest wallet addition, its Paytm Money app, went live on Android and iOS. In preparation for the launch, the platform reported reaped in 500K registrations to officially start Money’s operations with 850K users, with 65% of the users based in India’s top 15 cities. The announced plan shared on multiple news sources was to double the mutual fund investor base in India within the next three to five years. Paytm aims to double the mutual fund investor base in India within the next three to five years.
Based in Bengaluru, India, Paytm Money aims to generate wealth opportunities to people living in smaller Indian cities and interior towns and to focus on building investments and wealth management products and services. Led by Director Pravin Jadhav, Paytm Money has reportedly received a $10M investment commitment for operational costs from its parent company, One97 Communications.
“Access to wealth creation opportunities till today has been limited to a select few. With Paytm Money, we want to democratise and bring mutual fund investments to millions of Indians,” explained Paytm Founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma. “We are committed to taking the mutual fund investor base in India to 50 Mn in the next five years and expect Paytm Money to be the catalyst in bringing new incremental investors to this industry.”
Paytm Money said that the platform currently provides access to the platform to 2,500+ users a day, and plans to increase the daily user base to 10K over the next few weeks. Users will be informed when they are given access on their registered mobile number or email address; Paytm Money will also enable users to complete their fully digital KYC and onboarding for mutual fund investments, aiming to offer faster access to its new app. Anticipating glitches, the Paytm Money team plans to work closely with its initial users and source feedback and suggestions before fully launching the service.
Paytm, having partnered with 25 asset management companies, which reportedly cover 90% of the industry assets under management (AUM), will offer direct mutual funds plans that come with lower expense ratios due to zero distribution fee or commissions. The platform indicated that users can start investing in a lump sum or via SIPs with as little as INR 100 in some of the stratagem Paytm Money said that it had arranged with respected rating services, including MorningStar, CRISIL, and Value Research, in order to ease the investment decision-making process for its users.
“With Paytm Money, our role is to connect millions of investors to India’s trusted AMCs and fund managers while making the investing process simple, transparent, accessible to all, and offer it completely free to investors,” added Pravin Jadhav. “We are building a technology- based platform that offers both investment advisory and execution services, complete detailed risk profiling, and provides all possible information to users before they take any investment decision.”
Going forward, Paytm Money plans to invest further in product, design, data science and machine learning to analyze users’ risk assessment and recommend advisory portfolios and investment options that best suit individual users from time to time, ultimately becoming “a full-stack investment and wealth management company.”
At the end of August, Berkshire Hathaway, founded by iconic American business magnate, investor, speaker and philanthropist Warren Buffett, was reportedly set to buy a small stake in One97 Communications Ltd, the parent of mobile wallet service provider Paytm. Paytm has been in talks with Berkshire Hathaway to raise about ₹ 2,200- 2,500 crore (which is $300-350 million) at a valuation of about $10-12 billion.