Paytm Introduces Digital Wallet Payment Option At Indian Oil Pumps

After Cafe Coffee Day, Dominos and casual dining outlets like Costa Coffee, Pizza Hut and Vangos, Paytm’s mobile wallet will soon be accepted at all Indian Oil petrol pumps across the nation. On Friday, Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma announced via a Facebook post that customers at Indian Oil petrol pumps can pay for fuel using the Paytm digital mobile wallet. The company is enabling this facility at one pump at a time, so for now, only a few pumps accept payments through Paytm, but is being expected to be rolled out for each and every Indian Oil pumps of the country. This move is a part of the e-commerce company, Paytm to foray into the offline space.

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Paytm claims to have over 120 million registered users and more than 2.5 million transactions daily, on average. Now, with acceptance of Paytm wallet at Petrol pumps, the number of transactions are expected to grow at much faster pace. currently, offline payments market is huge and cashless or digital transaction accounts for a very small fraction. However, this scenario is changing at very significant pace by each passing day, and hence creating a path for digital mobile wallets to become a viable alternative to debit cards. The services like Paytm, and competitors like MobiKwik and FreeCharge, are widely accepted online and are determined to make an offline push as well. For example, Paytm is working on a payment token for the Delhi Metro, and a QR code based cashless payment system for small merchants.

The Facebook post of Vijay Shekhar Sharma also announced that the company has also launched a virtual prepaid card with ICICI bank. The physical cards issued to customers can be used at any shopping platform that accepts card-based payments, offline or online, at outlets that accept Visa, MasterCard, or RuPay. As part of the offline-online partnership, Paytm wallet users can also add money to their wallets through ICICI's branches, even if they are not ICICI customers.

Paytm's Payment Product Pipeline Head Nitin Misra, and FreeCharge's COO Govind Rajan have vowed their determination to make digital wallets feasible, in spaces where cash rules and also for our basic day-to-day requirements.