India's Payment Man Says He will Stick to His Forte Vijay Shekhar Sharma has launched yet another product for Indian customers called Digital Gold
By Punita Sabharwal •
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Recently back from the TIME 100 event (the band is still tied around Vijay Shekhar Sharma's right wrist) where he stood with privilege among the 100 most influential people in the world.
The music lover is happy to recall that he met all the cool people, including his favourite music legends. From the full page Paytm ads, which Sharma published on all leading newspapers the day after the Central Government announced the implementation of demonitisation to adding new innovations every day, Sharma has been the one who doesn't only react but respond to changing market situations and reads customer well.
Always a step ahead, Sharma launched yet another product for Indian customers called Digital Gold - cashing in on the opportunity of Akshaya Tritiya (an Indian festival wherein it's considered auspicious to buy gold). Coming from a small town in UP, Sharma has always been the hustler, quick to realize what opportunity to thrive on at what time.
At the launch event, Vijay says, "Our interest was that since we have a bank account now, we want to give wealth management products." With the current user base of more than 200 million, Paytm is on a mission to digitize half a billion Indians to use mobile payment, commerce and soon to be launched payment banking services.
Talking about building a future enterprise, Sharma says, "We will continue to remain committed on payments space." The company's investors include Ant Financial (Alipay), Alibaba Group, SAIF Partners and Mediatek. On the recent mergers taking place in e-commerce, Vijay was quick to hive off any rumors doing the rounds.
"We are not a buyer as we believe in building our own category. We have not bought or not buying anyone," states Sharma. He has also built a road map on international expansion side with the recent expansion in Canada. "Basically, we are talking about expansion of our business into the new market and Canada is our first market. Our business and Paytm labs there so we are expanding there," states Vijay.
(This article was first published in the May issue of Entrepreneur Magazine. To subscribe, click here)
