Paytm looks to foray into healthcare payments space

Paytm is doing what is does best, expand its services to new sectors not tapped so far. A report in Mint states that the company is it is trying to create a unique payment channel for medical professionals through the Paytm app. The last segment it entered was the education space.

With the new arrangement, doctors can collect their consultation charges from their patients. The doctors can then use their Paytm balances to make payments while purchasing medicines and other consumables for their clinics.

It will be a dedicated app for the medical fraternity and integrated with the regular Paytm as far as the patients or customers are concerned. The way Paytm wants to go about this is that the different payments that get credited to the doctors’ accounts from the various clinics they visit during the day will be reconciled and presented to them in a tabular form. The bulk payment facility within the app will also be seen as a benefit for the doctors to keep things simple for them.

Left to itself, Paytm may want to extend this facility to a broader platform where doctors and their patients could be linked and fixing of appointments and so on. Interestingly, they have a venture QorQ1, a healthcare app within the Paytm umbrella. However, they felt they may be too early for the Indian market with the product.

Paytm has done reasonably well with its education payment foray. It started with just helping with payment of fees and buying application forms etc. It has been subsequently expanded to education loans, insurance and so on. Paytm hopes to achieve a Rs 20,000 crore in gross merchandise value (GMV) on the education segment alone.

Elsewhere, Paytm is aiming to increase its current strength of 14 million merchant establishments accepting payments to 24 million before the end of this fiscal itself. 800 to 900 million transactions go through the Paytm app each month.