Paytm, which is currently India’s largest mobile payment platform, has announced that its wallet service can now also be used to pay for unreserved bus tickets. This is quite surprising as till now, it was a cash-only sector.
With this, the ticket counter staff will not have to go through the hassles of dealing with loose change and the delays associated with it. Since the cashless payment system has been enabled, the travelers can now pay at inter-city bus counters with their Paytm wallets.
This is a major advancement as even though more and more people started using digital payments through credit and debit card, this sector has always relied on just cash payments.
Paytm wallet users can simply scan the Paytm QR Code and send the exact amount to book their bus tickets. The entire process is now digitized with records of transactions in a jiffy at zero transaction fee. The company believes that with this step, they have opened up the gates of convenience and made commuting ease. The ticket booking process will become faster, more efficient and hassle-free.
Currently, bus counters operated by state transport undertakings(STUs) like Uttarakhand and Rajasthan have started accepting Paytm. The company is actively working to forge partnerships with other state-owned and private bus operators to bring them onboard.
Commenting on this move, Kiran Vasireddy, Vice President at Paytm said,
With this use case, Paytm has achieved a breakthrough in bringing digital payments to the unreserved bus ticketing sector. This is only a sneak peek into how the convenience of Mobile Wallets can revolutionise the transport sector.
Going forward, we will enable the Paytm Wallet at various state owned as well as private operators to drive our vision of making payments cashless across India.
Paytm, which was started in 2010 by Vijay Shekhar Sharma, is currently on a mission to bring half a billion Indians to the mainstream of the economy using mobile payment, commerce and soon to be launched payment banking services. It claims to have a user base of more than 140 million.
