Paytm Money gets SEBI nod to offer stock broking services

Paytm's aim to become a full-stack wealth management platform is going to be a reality as the Alibaba-backed firm is looking to lure stock broking customers through its next fintech play.

The Indian Unicorn through its subsidiary Paytm Money will allow customers to start stock broking on the app. Paytm has received approval from Securities & Exchange Board of India (SEBI) the market regulator to start the service and soon one can start buying shares through Paytm Money.

The company has also announced that Paytm Money’s membership with exchanges — BSE & NSE is also approved.

It took six months for the company to get the market regulator's approval after it submitted the application for selling shares of listed companies.

Now, Paytm Money will offer products such as trading in equities & cash segments, derivatives, ETFs and more exchange-traded products.

The integration of Paytm Money with Paytm Payments Bank will also make it easy for more than 300 million registered users to buy and sell shares within the app.

On its official blog, Paytm has announced that it will be ramping up engineering, product & design teams through fresh hirings besides setting up its teams for market operations in trade, settlement, depositories, risk, finance, treasury, and others.

During the launch of Paytm Money, the company had announced a commitment of $10 million upfront investment. Last month, it received about $4 million (Rs 28.87 crore) from the parent entity – One97 Communications.

The integration of stock trading in Paytm Money would also expose the company to new competitors such as Zerodha, ICICI Direct, Sharekhan, India Infoline and a few others.

Given that Paytm Money has garnered over 1 million users in 6 months, it could gain users quickly. It will be interesting to watch how Paytm Money leverages the huge userbase of its parent One97Communications in driving its adoption.

Besides the aforementioned apps in stockbroking space, Paytm’s core competitors – PhonePe and MobiKwik are also expected to integrate public trading on their platforms.