Digital payments company Paytm has launched recurring billing services for companies through its wallet. The company is targeting video streaming apps, websites, newsletters and media companies for the new service. Developers will be able to use APIs, SDKs and Plugins to accept recurring payments from customers. After a one-time authorization by the customer, the subscription amount would be auto-debited from the customer’s Paytm wallet at a given interval. Developers can log on to paywithpaytm.com/developers and download the relevant API to enable the service. Currently, companies such as Gaana, HotStar and Saavn are live with the option to pay through Paytm wallets, as indicated by this Economic Times report. Note that Paytm has not provided information on how recurring payments would be processed if a wallet's balance is empty. We have written to the company and will update once we hear from them. Note that Snapdeal-owned digital wallet FreeCharge had taken a stab at trying to solve with recurring payments back in September 2016 with a feature called Auto Pay which would pay utility bills by deducting from the wallet’s balance. Users will have to set a due date for bill and will work for mobile recharges as well. Once the transaction is successful, a confirmation will be shared with the customer. In case there aren’t sufficient funds in the Freecharge wallet, customers were reminded to add money to their wallet. However, loading the wallet through cards or net banking will still have second factor of authentication. On cards, users will still have to…
