Paytm Money to commence operation with mutual funds by April

Paytm Money, which was slated to start operations in March, has deferred the launch for another month. The investment and wealth management platform will launch operations in next 6-8 weeks, an ET report said.

Paytm Money is an effort by Paytm to engage users money for more time, and build sustainable loyalty. The company will make money through the deposits users store in their wealth management accounts.

Paytm Money received the approval of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) last week. The entity plans to start with mutual funds and later enter into other asset classes such as equity.

Paytm Money was earlier in discussions with leading asset management companies (AMCs) such as HDFC, ICICI, and SBI among others to offer financial products including mutual funds. It currently has onboarded around 12 AMCs and will add some 30-35 AMCs in the next 12 months.

Paytm Money is being led by Pravin Jadhav who has been working on this product since June 2017.

Like other cases, even in this case, Paytm has been following along the lines of Alibaba. In China, Alibaba’s payment affiliate Ant Financial promotes a money market fund called Yu’E Bao. The fund was set up by the Chinese tech company as a repository for leftover cash.

Currently, Yu’E Bao has become the biggest money market fund in the world with assets under management of more than $200 billion. 

In September last year, WeChat Pay also started testing a new feature called Lingqiantong, a flexible money-market mutual fund.

Meanwhile, Flipkart is reportedly planning to sell financial services, insurance, and mutual funds via its affiliate PhonePe.

At present, some of the leading digital lending startups that offer personal loans, credit, EMI and mutual funds products include BankBazaar, ZestMoney, Finomena, and Paisabazaar, among others.

Besides, Paytm is planning to develop a credit scoring product, Paytm Score. On the lines of Paisabazaar and BankBazaar, the new credit product will evaluate the creditworthiness of people seeking loans tell the loan eligibility based on customers’ transactions and behaviour.