With over 7 crore monthly transacting users, Paytm is a good indicator of trends in digital payments. According to the company’s data, over 130 crore digital payments were made for recharges of mobile phones and direct-to-home television & utility payments. Another interesting fact isthat transactions peak on Wednesdays and most transactions happen at 7.23pm.
The absence of the country’s financial capital from the list of top users is not a majorsurprise, considering that the smaller centres are driving usage. Two of every three new users joining Paytm are from smaller cities.
Among geographies,Chennai and Trichy in Tamil Nadu have the highest percentage of offline payments on food & beverages, while Amritsar saw the highest spend on health and grooming through Paytm. Noida and Nagpur saw the highest spending through Paytm on micro sellers or street vendors.
Katpadi in Vellore, Tamil Nadu recorded the highest growth in digital payments, with transactions at seven times what was recorded last year. Katpadi is a railway junction, and the Vellore Institute of Technology is located there. Varanasi has seen the highest growth in offline QR transactions, with total payments growing 213% over last year. Thefastest-growing cities in the northeast for UPI transactions are Lohit in Arunachal Pradesh, south Sikkim and Ranipool, and Assam’s Guwahati, Dibrugarh, Jorhat and Kamrup.
Among extreme users, one customer made the most widespread transactions in 106 cities across 20 states during the year. Another customer booked 358 flights between Mumbai and Delhi using Paytm. One user spent Rs 2. 8 lakh in one day during Diwali. Among Paytm merchants, the most common transaction was for Rs 20. Also, Paytm was widely used by brothers for paying shagun to sisters during Raksha Bandhan, with a surge in Rs 1,001 transactions on that day.
