After India Post’s notice, Paytm rebrands gifting solution Postcard to Lifafa

After getting a notice from India Post on recently launched product Postcard, a digital version of gifting money in an envelope on festivals Paytm has rebranded Postcard to Lifafa.

The home-grown digital payment company had received a notice from India Post on Aug 24, which says that only India Post has the sole right to use the word ‘postcard’ under the IPO Act rules and regulations.

Similar to WeChat’s digital red packets, Paytm had launched gifting solution Postcard about three weeks ago on the occasion of Raksha Bandhan. Noida-headquartered company claims to have recorded half a million transactions over the past three weeks.

"The rebranding exercise is limited to the name, while the core product remains the same. The word 'lifafa' has a strong emotional connect in our country and rebranding our service to 'Paytm Lifafa' will help in further establishing it as the go-to platform to exchange greetings and gift money," said Deepak Abbot, senior vice-president at Paytm to ET.

Earlier this month, RSS-affiliated Swadeshi Jagran Manch announced boycott of Paytm. The right-wing led organisation had appealed to the government to disallow investment in companies, which are getting funding from China.

After rebranding, the SoftBank-funded company plans to launch promotional activities to spread more awareness on the usage of its gifting product Lifafa. According to Abbot, the company also eyes to launch more product updates for the upcoming festive season.

In December last year, global payments major PayPal had challenged Paytm’s trademark registration, accusing the Noida-based company of copying design and colour scheme. It was said that Paytm is “deceptively and confusingly similar to PayPal” and follows a similar colour scheme, which is likely to cause confusion among consumers. The claim was later dismissed by the Indian government.