MUMBAI: Paytm’s wealth management subsidiary Paytm Money has gone live with its stockbroking service for all customers. The service had been running on beta mode since July and was only accessible to select Android users.
The company aims to register 1 million new retail investors on the platform by close of the ongoing fiscal year in March 2021, according to Varun Sridhar, the newly appointed CEO of Paytm Money, leveraging on the demand for equity trading among first-time users.
The move comes at a time when yields on traditional savings instruments, including bank deposits, are at decadal lows.
According to a statement shared by Paytm with ET, the platform’s early access version saw 220,000 users registering on Paytm Money for retail stockbroking. The platform also allows customers to invest in mutual funds and pension schemes.
“We believe it’s an opportunity for us to enable millennials and new investors to build their wealth portfolio. Our technology-enabled solutions help make stock investing simple and easy,” said Sridhar. “We will continue to challenge the status quo and build India’s best product.”
The company’s strategy to gain share in a highly competitive retail broking market is to offer discounted intraday trading rates of 10 per trade, which according to the company, is among the lowest in the industry.
Paytm Money faces competition from Zerodha, Upstox and Groww, among startups, and traditional players such as ICICI Securities and Motilal Oswal.
In an interview with ET last month, Sridhar had explained Paytm Money’s business model as a mix of commissions on intraday trades, interest income on loan against shares, and subscription income from select services that will be launched over the next few months in a 60%-20%-20% mix, respectively.
The company’s key target customer segment is first-time investors between in the 18-30 age group. This segment accounts for over 65% of the new registrations on the platform while in beta mode, the company said.
“The platform witnessed higher adoption from tier 1 cities such as Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Jaipur and Ahmedabad. Smaller cities such as Thane, Guntur, Bardhaman, Krishna and Agra are also showing high traction,” Paytm said.
The Bengaluru-based Paytm Money has also set plans to launch more complex features on the platform, including commodity and derivative trades by next year, Sridhar had told ET.
No comments: