Paytm gets IRDAI licence to offer insurance products

Paytm has secured a brokerage license for its wholly-owned subsidiary Paytm Insurance Broking Private Limited from the sector regulator Insurance Regulatory and Authority of India.

The license will allow the company to roll out insurance products to millions of consumers across India.

For now, the online payment platform will offer insurance products across four categories - two-wheeler, four-wheeler, health and life.

"Our entry into Insurance Broking is in line with our commitment to broaden our footprint into financial services and offering numerous and customized choices to millions of our customers. This would enable us to offer a wider suite of product offerings from a large set of insurance partners. The potential of the insurance business is huge as the market is still under-penetrated in India," said Amit Nayyar, President of Paytm in a statement.

The company would also provide policy management and claim services for customers.

Paytm also plans to leverage on its 16 million-strong merchant partner base, which will be functioning as Point of Sale Persons (POSPs), to sell its insurance products. The Vijay Shekhar Sharma-led firm aims to rope in 2 lakh such POSPs.

Last month, Entrackr had reached out to Paytm with queries over their plans of setting up an insurance brokerage entity but we got no response.

The new entity has three directors - Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Vikas Garg, and Amit Nayyar. In October last year, it had appointed Ravinder Kumar Gupta as CEO and Amit Aggarwal as CFO.

The development comes months after Paytm's plans to absorb Coverfox didn’t move further. In the insurance space, Paytm's main rival would be deep-pocketed Policybazaar and the recently founded Turtlemint.

In Feb, PhonePe had also launched its international travel insurance service for both business and leisure travellers in association with Bajaj Allianz General Insurance.