Just two days after Paytm shut down its services, the company is live, bringing back its PoS (point-of-sale) offerings. The news came from Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Founder and Chief Executive of Paytm.
Aside from announcing the relaunch of PoS service, Sharma stated that he won’t enter an interest rate war with its payments bank offering, which should go live during next month. Sharma told the reporters that “You would be surprised, it is back in the App stores,” regarding Paytm, during Ascent conclave for entrepreneurs. Sharma confirmed the claims when asked if the service definitely went live again.
He continued, saying that security risks connected with the PoS offering are at the same level as is the case when, for instance, a card is used at physical stores; when used n physical stores, card’s details can be copied and used to withdraw the funds from a card without the owner’s knowledge.
Sharma said that the next milestone for the company is to bring a few more features, aimed at eliminating the need for a swipe machine, ultimately allowing the service to be used only with a smartphone.
The new features will lower security risks, something that’s been talked about for some time. Before the facility went down, the company stated that “After our launch, we have had several discussions with stakeholders on how we can make this process even more secure. Based on some suggestions from the industry, we have decided to add additional certifications and features before making it available to merchants.”
Also, the company states that it didn’t store any credit card details on its servers, or in the mobile app. Paytm focus is making the service infrastructure-light, simple, scalable and affordable.
The company launched the product because it had a strong opportunity to scale up, since Paytm has only 16 crore users, compared to 55 crore card owners. As for the payments bank, application for the final license has been submitted to RBI and it should go live before the end of 2016. As Sharma stated regarding the bank, “We have had interactions with the regulator and are hopeful it should come really soon,” adding that “We probably have synced up on most of the topics. Logically, it should not be many more things.”
Finally, Sharma confirmed that the company won’t join the rate war after Airtel offered 7.25 percent interest rate for account holders.