Paytm, the country’s biggest online payments startup, is reportedly looking to gain a license that will enable the company to launch a money market fund. If granted, users can store cash and earn interest, in competition with the country’s banks.
The money market fund is also called a money market mutual fund which is an open-ended mutual fund that invests in short-term debt securities. As per Bloomberg’s report, the payments giant has applied to the Reserve Bank of India to obtain the license that’ll increase its reach to over 250 million users.
This is another step in the company’s push to disrupt the country’s financial services industry after it secured a banking license and began offering gold trading earlier this year. Earlier today, we reported that the company is all set to roll out UPI-based payment services later in August.
With backing from global giants such as Alibaba and its affiliate Ant Financial, Paytm is also attempting to follow the success that Alibaba has chronicled. Alibaba set up its Yu’E Bao fund less than five years ago in China and made it the world’s biggest such fund with 1.14 trillion yuan ($167 billion) in assets.
Earlier, Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma had told Bloomberg that he plans to invest $1.6 billion over the next five years to expand the bank’s wealth management, insurance, and lending businesses.
Like traditional money market funds, the Paytm money market fund will sweep leftover digital cash into a fund and pay users interest on it. The rate of interest is not known but the fund will offer better returns than the interest rates banks offer on savings accounts currently.
With over 250 million users, the digital payment startup founded in 2010 is strengthening its foothold in the payments and finance market. It now has more users than the top four credit card companies in India.
