On September 18, Google pulled Paytm out from the Play store for violating its policy on gambling.
On collecting a certain number of stickers, users stood a chance to win UPI cashback offers. On September 11 in the run up to the Indian Premier League, cricket’s festival-like tournament, Paytm launched a campaign where users could collect cricket stickers and scratch cards by completing transactions like recharges, money transfers, utility payments etc. Many more are expected to join after a conference for app developers organised by Paytm gets underway on October 8, says Yadav.Ī sequence of events led to the launch of Paytm’s mini store. More than 300 developers are presently on the mini store including e-pharmacy 1mg, FreshMenu and music app Hungama. “We’ve already seen huge excitement from developers,” says Yadav. And third, the 30 percent fee on in-app purchases that developers must pay on the Play Store is done away with, making it a more viable option for growing startups. Second, developers can leverage Paytm’s distribution network of 150 million monthly active users to widen their reach. One, it requires “very little investment and engineering effort” on part of the developers because they’re listing mini apps on the platform as opposed to full-fledged interfaces. “This enables us to achieve three things,” explains Narenda Singh Yadav, senior vice president, Paytm. Payments for in-app purchases can be made via Paytm’s wallet, UPI or individual bank accounts and developers needn’t pay Paytm fee on such purchases.
Users meanwhile can access these apps within the Paytm app without having to download individual apps from the Play store. Paytm provides them with the tools to do so. So how does it work? Developers can list themselves on the mini store by creating a “mini app”-a website with app-like features. To be sure, Paytm’s mini store doesn’t replace the Play Store which is installed on more than 95 percent of India’s 500 million smartphones. In regards with the Western Union Financial Services, the RBI said the company had reported instances of breach of the ceiling of 30 remittances per beneficiary during 20 and filed an application for compounding of the violation.The announcement also comes days after a coalition of 50+ Indian startups including Zomato, MakeMyTrip, and RazorPay, came together to protest against Google’s policy of levying a 30 percent fee on in-app purchases. “RBI determined that the aforementioned non-compliance warranted the imposition of a monetary penalty after analyzing the compounding application, and oral submissions made during the personal hearing,” RBI mentioned in its statement. On the other hand, RBI also imposed a fine of over ₹27 lakh Western Union Financial Services Inc (WUFSI), a cross-border in-bound service operator, for ‘for non-compliance with certain provisions of the directions contained in the Master Direction on Money Transfer Service Scheme (MTSS Directions) dated February 22, 2017.’ Thereafter, the central bank by an order on October 1 imposed a monetary penalty of Rs 1 crore on PPBL. “After reviewing the written responses and oral submissions made during the personal hearing, the RBI determined that the aforementioned charge was substantiated and warranted the imposition of a monetary penalty,” it further said. After reviewing the written responses and oral submissions made during the personal hearing, RBI determined that the aforementioned charge was substantiated and warranted the imposition of a monetary penalty.” RBI said, “As this was an offence of the nature referred to in Section 26 (2) of the PSS Act, a notice was issued to PPBL.