22 | FORBES ASIA APRIL 2018
illment versus a few large warehouses that the big e-com-
merce sites have. “hat is the core belief that we are building
on, and early results have been really good,” Sinha says.
Paytm has over 3 00 million users, and the company
processes over 10 million transactions a day, says COO Kiran
Vasireddy. It has 6 million merchants on its network. “he
key is to reach out to every kind of small and large store to hit
10 million stores by the end of March 2019,” he says.
Loans, not just to consumers but also to sellers, form an
intrinsic part of the O2O business as well. Take the case of
Samsung phones, for instance. When each of the 150,000 stores
becomes an “endless aisle” for the consumer and the seller,
Samsung gets to know what is selling where, and deeper ana-
lytics facilitate what comes next—quick on-the-spot loans.
Of the 150,000 stores, only a few thousand have ever been
able to ofer a loan to a consumer to purchase a fancy smart-
phone. his was because the traditional approach of banks
required a stafer to be physically present at the store and
ofer loans to the buyer, Sinha says.
With Paytm Mall’s network, each store can ofer the same
plan from the same seller “and the campaign goes live at the
click of a button,” he says. “It’s a deep and symbiotic relation-
ship that we’re getting into with Samsung.”
he importance of the lending efort is underscored by the
fact that One97’s CFO himself is charged with running the
lending business as well. SUMIT DAYALFORBES ASIA
PAYTM