India’s push for digital transactions has attracted global online payments giant PayPal to launch its services in the country. The Indian market is currently dominated by China’s Alibaba-backed Paytm which had made a killing last year when the country was reeling under cash shortage after the federal government demonetized high value currency notes.
PayPal, the Elon Musk-founded company, will allow Indian consumers to use the platform to shop online at some of the country’s most popular businesses. Merchants accepting PayPal will be also able to process both local and global payments through PayPal and get access to the payment processor’s more than 218 million customers around the world and in India, reports Reuters.
Earlier in September, Alphabet Inc’s Google launched a localized payments app for India, trying to gain a foothold in the country’s rapidly-growing digital payments space.
Close to 95% of all transactions in India involve cash and local and foreign credit card. Hence, online payment firms see a huge potential in this untapped market.
The recent demonetization had prompted many retail outlets in India’s smaller cities to install card swipe machines and accept digital payments. Many customers in these cities, who were hitherto using only cash, also got used to card and digital payments. Credit card and online payment firms see a huge potential in this market.