With an aim to take Indian market by storm, PayPal had tried numerous methodologies like application for PPI (Prepaid Payment Instrument) in September last year to wooing Snapdeal for its Freecharge app. After making a failed attempt to acquire Freecharge, the company tried to invest into Flipkart’s PhonePe to capture the sizeable share of the world’s fastest emerging digital market.
On Wednesday, PayPal launched its digital payment initiative in India whereby it offers a slew of offerings in form of domestic payment processing, buyer-seller protection, multi-lingual support and a 180-day umbrella cover. Alternatively, PayPal India has already started making an impact on its social initiative like GIVES to Employee wellness.
With the focus to provide a one-touch solution for in-country and cross country transactions, the Globetrotters will find it designed for easing their needs. With lucrative services that encourage exports in the offering, the global digital payment goliath fights the homegrown brands like Paytm. The question remains if the success story will resemble that of the Amazon’s journey in India.
The entry, however, happens one year post the demonetization along with innovation centres at Bengaluru and Chennai.
Narsi Subramaniyam, Director, Small Sellers & Consumers – PayPal India, explains the strategy of reduction in the FIRC fee as enabling merchants to enable profitability in cross-border business. The move proves to be highly useful for freelancers and local merchants to maximize the returns.
This move comes when Paytm is making a foray into global market while PayPal struggles to maintain its stunning foray in India to strengthen the existing 218 million members globally with 53 percent consisting of non-US users. With an improved user interface and design, the app received a considerable boost from Venmo platform.
The journey from the being awarded the worst brand in 1999 to the growing e-community of its own, PayPal has its own success story with a growth rate of 10% (a rate more than the GDP of many nations.
This has lead Rohan Mahadevan, CEO – PayPal Pvt Ltd & SVP, General Manager APAC of PayPal, to quote, “India’s digital payments journey is on a high growth trajectory and we are proud to be a part of it. We are excited about our prospects in a market that is highly inspirational and aspirational.”
The competition in digital payment industry in India is fueled after PayPal debut. To grab a sizable chunk of the market, almost every major digital payment processing player is ready to pump in sizable investment. It is estimated that e-commerce giant Amazon is injecting nearly $250 million in India to penetrate its digital payment service Amazon Pay India. On the other hand, Flipkart is set to invest nearly $40 million into its unified payment processing platform, PhonePe.
