Paytm earmarks to bring 10 million merchants on ONDC, says the founder and CEO of Paytm

Vijay Shekhar Sharma sees ONDC as a potential catalyst for Paytm's seamless expansion and labels it a "natural extension"

Paytm’s CEO and Founder, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, expressed the company’s commitment to facilitating the onboarding of one crore merchants onto the government-supported Open Network for Digital Commerce by 2025.

Sharma sees ONDC as a potential catalyst for Paytm’s seamless expansion into the realm of commerce, labelling it a “natural extension” during the ‘Build for Bharat’ hackathon on Monday.

“Paytm’s ecosystem is built around small merchants and the mission that we are on is to help small merchants and small businesses become part of the mainstream economy. We did it by payments. Everybody to whom we have given new payments wants to have new customers. That is when ONDC comes. We plan to bring 10 million merchants on ONDC before 2025 ends,” on the sidelines of an ONDC event, the founder of Paytm made the statement.

Paytm, managed by One 97 Communications Ltd., plans to expand its services beyond the buyer side of the app, encompassing various aspects of transactions, including sellers and logistics, as stated by the CEO. Being the first major app to join the ONDC initiative, Paytm has played a pivotal role in boosting traffic and transactions. According to Vijay Shekhar Sharma, almost 1.2 crore users have already conducted transactions on ONDC through the Paytm app.

“If you bring a large number of merchants, customers are out there and searching for them. Obviously, the issue of trust and discovery has to be sorted out but there are a large number of customers who are ready to come online and shop,” said Vijay Shekhar Sharma.