Paytm Wallet & Paytm Payments Bank To Get Merged; Users Provided Option To Opt Out

 

Paytm has officially informed all 15 crore users of their wallet that in the coming days, their accounts would be merged with the Paytm Payments Bank. And this announcement was made by full page advertisement in Times of India, which was shared by Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma.

While sharing this news, he said, “Just like a daughter grows up and goes to her new family & home, We at One97 saw it from a concept to a well grown up name today. Our company One97/Paytm will transfer your Paytm Wallet to her new home, Paytm Payments Bank — A fully Indian entity, being built to make India proud in banking space”

There was a small Indian flag after this message on his Facebook wall.

This means that Paytm Payments Bank Limited (PPBL), whose aim was to get 20 crore users in the first year, will now get 15 crore users on day 1, by default, from Paytm Wallet.

Hence, even if Airtel beat Paytm to launch India’s first payments bank in Rajasthan, Paytm will have the advantage of numbers over Airtel (atleast in the first year of operations). In order to counter, Airtel may have to convert all their subscribers into their bank customers, which seems highly unlikely.

What Should Paytm Wallet Customer Know Now?

In the announcement regarding the merger, Paytm has included some vital pointers, which every Paytm customer should be aware of:

1. In case you have no issues with this merger, and agree to transfer your wallet to the newly, yet to be formed Payments Bank, then the process of transfer of your wallet cash to the Payments bank will happen automatically. The last date to oppose is December 21, 2016.
2. If you don’t want to become part of Paytm Payments Bank, then either email them at [email protected] or visit Paytm.com/care to notify your opposition. Now, once that happens, Paytm will allow you to transfer your wallet balance to your own bank account, within 15 days of your notification.
3. If you dont transfer your wallet balance within 15 days, then your balance shall be kept in a special account of their Payments Bank, and you cannot transact that amount. Once you submit your bank account details, that amount can be transferred.
4. And, in case your Paytm wallet hasn’t been active since last 6 months and has a zero balance, then your wallet won’t be transferred into the new Payments Bank; unless you ask them to do so.

Earlier, Paytm had allocated a budget of Rs 400 crore to market their own Payments Bank.

Note here, that Paytm has already created a separate company called Paytm E-Commerce Pvt. Ltd for managing their ecommerce business. This was done to comply with RBI rules regarding Payments Bank operations and for allowing Alibaba a chance to enter India, using their established ecommerce platform.

Now, it would be really interesting to see how Paytm promotes and markets its payments bank, at a time when Airtel has already launched interesting features.

We will keep you updated as more details come in..