With forex service integration, Paytm solves major pain of outbound travellers

Ramping up its ambition to become full stack fintech platform, Alibaba-backed Paytm has integrated forex service for money exchange of top 20 international currencies. The platform launched the service by partnering forex major Centrum Direct.

The multi-currency forex card and forex cash can be ordered on a real-time basis. Besides, the platform provides the facility for doorstep delivery of the service within 48 hours. It can also be collected from any of the platform’s nearest partnered seller’s outlets across the country.

Paytm is also covering services such as lock-in current rates by making a 2 per cent partial payment and slashing commission, service charges, and any other hidden charges. It also lets users load up to $2,50,000 in a financial year and buy up to $3000 as currency notes.

Over the past one year, Paytm has turned aggressive towards travel segment.

Recently, the Noida-based company claimed to sold out 38 million air, bus, and rail ticket in FY18. Currently, it’s selling about 4 million tickets every month and the volume is very close to the country’s largest OTA – MakeMyTrip.

Meanwhile, the company had withdrawn hotel offerings from its app from the beginning of this year. Surprisingly, Paytm has not given up on the hotel segment. Last week, it acquired the last-minute hotel booking platform, NightStay.

After acquiring NightStay, the Vijay Shekhar Sharma-led company is likely to resume the hotel booking feature.

With the integration of forex services, Paytm seems to be eying growing number of outbound travellers from India. The country is the fastest-growing outbound market, ranked after China with an estimation to grow by 50 million by 2020 as per the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO).

Currently, converting Indian currency into foreign denomination is a time taking process, and requires to visit offline vendors. To a great extent, it’s a pain for outbound travellers, and Paytm solves it as one can now avail forex services online.