Continuing its business expansion drive into more digital payments/related domains, Paytm is now rolling out a new Food Wallet feature on the Paytm app. This new feature is meant for corporates to issue tax-free employee benefits such as meal coupons and food vouchers.
Essentially, this new line of business will compete directly with existing players like Sodexo and Ticket Restaurant who issue physical coupons at present. Paytm is banking on acting as a digital variant of these difficultt to carry, physical food coupons.
With Paytm’s food wallet, employers can now directly top-up the credits for their employees on a flexible daily, monthly or quarterly basis. They can also instantly transfer money to the food wallets of employees based anywhere in the country with a click of a button, without any hassles of procuring, handling and distributing bulky coupons and cards.
With this launch, Food Wallet is targeting the 6 million employee base. RBI has issued guidelines for all prepaid meal vouchers to go digital by end of 2017. Paytm is tapping into the Rs 25,000 crore ‘tax-free allowance’ market, and aims to replace the traditional meal voucher and provide tax-saving opportunities to corporate employees.
Kiran Vasireddy, Senior Vice President at Paytm, said,
The biggest incentive for corporates to use our Food Wallet is the convenience it offers. Employers can use their laptops to instantly transfer money to food wallets of employees based anywhere in the country without any hassles of procuring, handling and distributing bulky coupons and cards. The Food Wallet comes with the complete suite of in-app security features available on Paytm such as app lock password, two-factor authentication and passcode among others.
It also allows employees to track available balance and locate outlets which would accept the payment using the ‘nearby’ feature on the wallet. The wallet can be used at office cafeterias and at an online and physical outlets part of the Paytm network.
The outlets on this platform include KFC, Burger King, Zomato, Pizza Hut, Café Coffee Day and Big Bazaar among others. The feature is live in over 10 corporate offices, said the company representatives.
