Mumbai: Mobile payments and commerce platform Paytm said on Monday it witnessed over seven million transactions worth Rs120 crore on Saturday because of wider cashless payments, after the government withdrew Rs500 and Rs1,000 currency notes.

“From consumers being able to pay for a cup of coffee in metros, to farmers purchasing seeds using Paytm in Kurnool, we are witnessing an exponential increase in adoption of Paytm as a way to pay by both consumers and merchants alike," Paytm vice- president Sudhanshu Gupta said in a statement.

After announcing that the Delhi-based company touched a record five million transactions on 14 November, the digital wallet in one week has grown to become comparable to the combined average daily number of payment transactions seen by debit and credit cards in India.

As per the latest public data available on the website of Reserve Bank of India for August 2016, the total number of transactions at a point of sale through credit and debit cards is over 214 million, implying an average of over 6.9 million daily transactions. Given the demonetisation, this number, too, could have seen a surge this month. However, the latest numbers are not publicly available.

One97 Communications Ltd-owned Paytm claims that offline, person-to-merchant transactions have grown to contribute over 65% of the transactions. The company has also added 150,000 merchants to its network of 10 lakh merchant network across India that accept digital wallet payments. The company has deployed 4,000 employees to sign up merchants. Paytm claims to add 25,000 merchants daily to its network. The company launched payment solutions for offline merchants in 2015.

Paytm says since demonetisation, it has served over 45 million users and signed up over five million new users. Overall, the company has seen 25 million offline transactions on Paytm in the last six days, amounting to Rs150 crore.

Mobile wallets claim to have gained immensely with the government’s move.

Mobikwik in a statement on Saturday said since demonetisation, its Nearby feature saw over 25 times rise in traffic. The feature helps users find stores and outlets that accept Mobikwik payments in the vicinity.

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