Page 24 - WTM Cities Report

PayTM cashes in on Indian demonetisation
The Indian economy is heavily dependent on cash transactions; the demonetisation of INR500 and INR1,000 notes by the Indian government in November 2016 created a major shortage of cash in the economy. While the government took this step to ght corruption and the black market,
it also had the side-e ect of boosting cashless transactions. People across the country now prefer using mobile wallets for travel booking.
PayTM (Pay Through Mobile) is one of the companies successful in making cashless payments easy for second-tier, third-tier and rural Indians. PayTM launched a booking feature for railway tickets in September 2016, and in less than a year, this “travel outsider” has become the second largest retailer of rail tickets in the country. Major OTAs such as MakeMyTrip and
ClearTrip have followed suit by investing in mobile wallet.
95% of transactions in India still involve cash, but the demonetisation has boosted transactions made through digital payment facilities such as PayTM.
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