Action packed morning at PayTM’s headquarters

In an overnight move, the push has turned to pull at One97 Communication's PayTM, Noida headquarters as merchants from all over the country have started making non-stop calls to get listed with the leading mobile walletservice provider. Nobody wants to miss out on business after the carpet ban on Rs500 and Rs1000 currency notes imposed by the Union Government on November 8.

The mobile wallet giant, presently valued at USD5 billion, has been gunning for a one-million merchants by end of November. It is now assured of achieving it over the next few days. The company is also targeting to enroll 4 million merchants by December 2016. PayTM presently has 300,000 merchants enrolled in Delhi, NCR alone. The consumer base of PayTM, nationwide is 150 mobile wallets. The Noida offices of PayTM host 2000 of its total 4500 employees nationwide.

PayTM's headquarters in Noida's Sector 5 looks like a busy space. Work load has doubled since last night. PayTM, having started operations in 2007-8, now has three facilities in Noida, and two more are expected to be added in the city in the months ahead.

"Initially we were convincing people to come on board. Now people themselves are approaching us. Work has speeded up. The urban centers are picking up PayTM fast, and we are now increasingly looking at tier two and tier three cities. We are present in 40 locations outside of the metros, across India," Kiran Vasireddy, SVP-Business told TOI.

The overnight enrollment has shot up rapidly. The spike in spends via PayTM is expected to be quantified soon.

Alipay the payment's unit of Chinese online shopping giant Alibaba, has picked up 25% equity in PayTM in 2015. Apart from exiting funders like SAIF Partners, a fresh round of fund raising from Taiwanese semiconductor maker MediaTek and a few others saw the company's valuation doubling in 2016 year to USD 5 billion.