Paytm Allows Non-KYC Users To Use Gift Vouchers

Consumers can still load money into a Paytm wallet even if they haven’t completed their Know-Your-Consumer (KYC) formalities. Paytm appears to be working around the latest directive of the RBI for mandatory KYC, where users can load money into their accounts through gift vouchers on the platform.

But these gift vouchers will be non-transferable to other users and back to your bank accounts. They also come with an expiry date of one year, a standard practice among players issuing such vouchers.

With the new regulations kicking in, prepaid payment instruments (PPIs) —or digital wallets have come under pressure. Paytm leap into other businesses from its core e-wallet business including this move to issue gift vouchers comes as a strategy to minimise the damage to its non-KYC e-wallet user base.

Paytm has been trying to migrate users from a pure-play e-wallet to its channel on the Unified Payments Interface, or UPI, platform. The early impact of the RBI’s guidelines have been felt by companies.

A 30% decline in the e-wallet user base by Amazon India has come as a shocker to paytm. According to an industry executive who did not wish to be named, gift vouchers have been operating in the grey area.