A fully-owned subsidiary of One97 Communications Paytm has been India’s darling unicorn for years at this point. Paytm has over three million users on its investment platform Paytm Money which used to be solely for mutual fund investment but has recently branched out to include services such as equity and cash segment.
The Bengaluru-based wealth management arm of one97 Communication Ltd, claims to achieve a customer base of 6.6 million by volume, overtaking Zerodha, one of the largest retail brokerage firms in the country.
Paytm money has completed 2 years of its operations, the company claims 70% of its user-base first-time investors and 60% from small town and cities.
Products and services of Paytm money include:
Paytm has a vast inventory including but not limited to; Index funds, Equity funds, Debt funds, Mutual funds, Tax saver plans, etc. Apart from this, the low minimum investment amount of ₹ 100 to being with makes it a lucrative option. However, it has to be noted that since Paytm Money is a discount brokering platform, you are on your own when it comes to deciding the spread of your investment.
National Pension Scheme – This is a service that will primarily appeal to salary holders and those who want to save on taxes. To exercise this option one can start with an option as low as ₹ 1000 and have tax free returns on investments of up to ₹ 2 lakhs in NPS. Paytm money also gives you the option to choose from any of the 7 pension fund managers and start with a low fund management fee at 0.01%.
Zerodha has a strong customer-base of over3 million users
Over 3+ million clients place millions of orders every day through the powerful ecosystem of investment platforms, contributing over 15% of all Indian retail trading volumes. Also the Bengaluru-based Zerodha, recently ascribed itself a valuation of $1 billion
In addition, Zerodharuns a number of popular open online education and community initiatives to empower retail traders and investors.
Rainmatter, the fintech fund and incubator, has invested in several fintech startups with the goal of growing the Indian capital markets.
“We are on a mission to democratize wealth services for millions of Indians that would play a key role in building Atmanirbahar Bharat. Over the last two years, we have enabled new users from small cities and towns to invest with confidence by providing innovative and personalized services. We strive to become the first step in the investment journey so that every user benefits from technology and financial inclusion” said Varun Sridhar, CEO, Paytm Money. Sridhar was appointed as CEO in July.
Zerodha founder Nithin Kamath recently told Mint that it was aggressively acquiring new users, adding 250,000 new unique accounts every month.
With starting the stock-broking business recently in August in spite of receiving the license from SEBI in April 2019, Zerodhaentered the business a bit late.
Mint recently reported that Paytm Money expects to do a full-scale launch of its stockbroking service in September and expects to hit 100,000 in daily trades within six months, touching 250,000 customers in the first year.
The platform currently has over 2.5 lakh users on-board, subscribed for the stockbroking services.
Paytm Money In 2019-20 said it has recorded a 100% increase in new monthly SIP registrations and a 143% gain in overall monthly investment volumes.
As Paytm Money dabbles with stockbroking, Zerodha, which has been in the space for nearly a decade, is looking to launch its ‘loan against securities’ product this month.
The retail stock brokerage, which received its non-banking finance company (NBFC) license from the Reserve Bank of India in 2018, has been working on launching this product for almost two years now.