Launch of Paytm’s Mini App Store – Paytm’ takes on Google
Paytm, one of India’s most valuable start-up, claiming over 50 million monthly active users was temporarily removed from the Google’s Play Store on September 18, 2020, on account of it violating the Google's app policies on unregulated gambling and online casinos.
The Paytm team had that at the time released an outrageous statement which inter alia mentioned, “As a start-up, we are running law-abiding businesses in India. Google and its employees are making policies which are over and above the laws of our country, and are arbitrarily implementing them.”
Thereafter, Paytm in a direct take on Google, on October 5, 2020, launched a mini-app store to support Indian developers.
The Paytm mini-app store was launched in the form of a new section on the app wherein these mini-apps will be listed. Rapido, Netmeds, Decathlon, Ola, Dominos, FreshMenu, and NoBroker have already joined the Paytm mini-app store. In all and until now around 300 apps have joined the store.
Google has a policy whereby it mandates the developers listed on its Play Store to use its billing service. In order to deal with this unfair policy of Google, under the Paytm mini-app store, the developers are given a choice of Paytm Wallet, Paytm Payments Bank, UPI, net-banking and Cards to their users for making payments.
Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Founder and CEO, Paytm, said, "Paytm Mini App Store empowers our young Indian developers to leverage our reach and payments to build new innovative services. For Paytm users, it will be a seamless experience that doesn't require any separate download and enables them to use their preferred payment option."
The Company in a press release said that the idea is based on the drive of 'Atmanirbhar Bharat' mission as propagated by our Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
In a different matter, Google levies a 30% commission on any transaction made for a digital product or service through its in-app billing system. Triggered by this policy of google, many Indian start-up founders have held virtual meetings for days to come together and evaluate legal options including approaching regulators such as the Competition Commission of India (CCI) and Reserve Bank of India (RBI) against Google. One will now have to wait and see how the regulators in India look at the matter at hand.
