Udit Agarwal
Paytm, which is one of the largest India’s leading digital payments service provider yesterday has acquired Bengaluru-based smart-savings management startup Balance Technology for an undisclosed amount. With the acquisition, Paytm is looking to cement its position in the market as a provider of all the financial services its customers need.
The member of team consist of six people from Balance technology who has joined Paytm’s product and design team, in order to further enhance Paytm’s user and merchant interfaces.
Balance Technology was founded by two IIT-Kanpur graduates, Ankit Kumar and Abhishek Malik in 2016. It provides smart savings management app that helps its users to boost their savings by automating their investments in fixed deposits and mutual funds, using its proprietary algorithm. The app is available exclusively for Zerodha Kite users.
Now with respect to talking about the acquisition, Ankit Kumar, who is the CEO and co-founder, of Balance Technology said in a press statement, “Our team has been building automated products that make the saving experience relatable and delightful by helping users reach their goals in clever little ways. Our conversational personal savings assistant nudges users to build a saving habit, and give purpose to their money as they go about their busy lives. We look forward to bring in computational intelligence, unique design and proprietary algorithms with Balance to help Paytm users accomplish more with their money.”
This acquisition is set to boost Paytm’s mutual fund distribution platform Paytm Money that is set to launch soon. Paytm Money has tied up with at least 15 fund houses and will offer their products on its platform. The platform has already garnered around 5 lakh users.
According to the IBEF, the mutual fund industry in India has seen rapid growth in Asset Under Management (AUM). The total AUM of the industry stood at ₹23.26 lakh crore ($ 360.90 billion) as of April 2018.
Other players in this domain include mutual fund investment startup Fisdom, Mumbai-based wealth management application WealthTrust, Bengaluru-based stock market investment platform Tauro Wealth, Scripbox, TipBazaar, among others.
