Mobile payments company Paytm has taken its first step towards global expansion by launching into the Canadian market. Dubbed as Paytm Canada, the smartphone app is live on Google Play and iTunes, and allows users to pay their phone, cable, internet, water and electricity bills. Insurance and property taxes can also be paid on the platform.
“Today we’re starting a new and exciting journey by going global. Canadians will now be able to pay for their cell phone, cable, internet, electricity and water bills using the new Paytm Canada app. They can also use it to pay insurance and property taxes,” read the company blogpost.
Left: John Tory, Mayor, Toronto ; Right: Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Founder, Paytm
The Alibaba-backed entity started its R&D arm, Paytm Labs in Toronto in 2014 led by Harinder Takhar, a Blackberry alumnus, to monetize and explore the plausibilities of big data. Hence, the company has been running a team, which is now 55 member strong force of software, data and machine learning engineers in Canada, before discretely commencing its operations in the country.
Earlier this week, the company announced the launch of its recurring billing service which is applicable to cloud-based companies that are providing newsletters, media content, web-based video streaming applications and websites. The feature will allow entrepreneurs and developers use the platform as a channel for recurring payments. The digital payments company also recently announced to have crossed 200 million wallet users and launched a separate app — Paytm Mall — for its e-commerce venture.
This global stunt comes just a few days after Chinese tech conglomerate Alibaba tightened its control over Paytm, buying the 1% stake held by Reliance Capital for $41.2 million (INR 2.75 billion). Alibaba, along with SAIF Partners together announced to put in $200 million in the payments company. This fresh money announced has reportedly raised the Chinese firm’s stake to 60%.