Paytm Partners APSRTC to Offer Online Bus Reservations

Paytm has partnered Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC) to offer online bus reservation for passengers. The facility would be available on its platform for APSRTC's 3,276 services on 1,250 routes, enabling passengers to seamlessly book their travel tickets, a Paytm release said.

"We are glad to partner with APSRTC and make their complete bus inventory accessible to Paytm's 300 million user base," Paytm vice-president Abhishek Rajan said in the release.

"We have so far partnered with 10 state road transport corporations to provide seamless reservation facility and will also tie-up with private operators soon," he said.

The release quoted an APSRTC spokesman as saying that the goal was to ensure improvement in services and satisfaction of passengers.

Paytm late last month launched its Tap Card, something it is promoting as India's first "truly offline payments solution." It is a card that uses NFC to transfer money on company-authorised Point of Sale (PoS) terminals, and is aimed at non-Internet users.

The Paytm Tap Card uses enables safe and convenient digital payments with the help of NFC, completely offline at Paytm-issued PoS terminals in under a second, the company says. To make payments, users can add money from their Paytm account by scanning the QR code on the Tap Card and by authenticating it at any of the add value machines (AVM). It also addresses any network-related concerns at the consumers' or merchants' end.