RBI crackdown on Paytm spooks retailers; Walmart, Google swoop in

Bengaluru/Mumbai/Chennai: Hit by a regulatory crackdown, India’s Paytm is mobilizing its sales team to reassure the merchants who use its app to accept digital payments just as Walmart and Google are targeting those same vendors with their rival offerings.

Cash was once king in India, but Paytm is credited with revolutionising India’s digital payments market which is set to be worth Rs 8,30,60,150 crore by 2026. Backed by SoftBank, and earlier by billionaire investor Warren Buffett and China’s Alibaba, it has 100 million monthly users and clocked Rs 5,06,647 crore worth of merchant payments between October and December.