Paytm has struck a fruitful partnership with Alibaba’s cloud computing division, AliCloud that will propel the payment service’s expansion onto global market. The commercial partnership is beneficial for the both the companies as Paytm will offer Alibaba’s financial arm, Alipay a doorway into the payment services sector in India.
According to the terms of the deal reported by Mint, Paytm will receive a sum of $18 million to channelize Alipay’s payment service technology through AliCloud.
Once both the services are integrated, users in China will be able to use Alipay for shopping with an Indian site; while Indian shoppers using Paytm can buy items on Alipay supported platforms in China, Japan and the US and the UK.
Speaking on the occasion, Paytm Founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma states,
With Aliyun (AliCloud) platform we will have access to services such as data analytics and insights into customer trends across markets where Alipay is present and it will help us build stronger merchant database.
The deal has been a long time coming for both the companies, as a team from AliCloud was positioned in Paytm’s office in Noida to integrate the services for the last six months.
Owned by One97 Communications Ltd, Paytm has received backing from global investors such as SAIF Partners. But perhaps its largest investments has come from none other than the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba. Alibaba is the largest investor in the payment services company, and recently had invested in the company last September. Its latest investment took its tally of overall investment in Paytm to $680 million.
With continued backing from Alibaba, Paytm has managed to reach a valuation of $2.5 billion in the rapidly growing payment services market. As of now, Paytm has over 60 million transactions taking place through the platform each month.
Its e-commerce division has over 160,000 sellers on its platform, while the payment service, on an average witnesses about Rs.1,700 crore transacted through its platform each month.
Paytm has also managed to receive support from the government and was one of the 11 recipients to obtain a license from Reserve Bank of India in August. The service, which has over 100 million users on its platform struck a partnership with IRCTC to offer online payments for users ordering food through its e-catering division.
