New Delhi, December 14, 2020.

India's homegrown digital financial services platform Paytm today announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary Paytm Money aims at empowering over 1 lakh new investors with ETFs in the next one year. The company said that Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) are cost-efficient as compared to traditional mutual funds due to a lower commission and higher returns which makes it a valuable wealth product for new to investments users. Trading in ETFs additionally presents new short-term income opportunities for investors.  

Paytm Money aims to encourage more Indians to manage their savings better and give them wealth creation opportunities. It further said that ETFs is expected in the next 2 years to account for 20 percent of the overall AUMs for the company. The product has immense growth prospects and in the next five years would become the top investment avenues for Indians as it has happened in US and other markets. 

The company said that it has started a campaign to promote ETF as a must have wealth creation product and encourages more Indians to invest in ETFs as compared to other available products. As part of the campaign Paytm Money with ICICI Prudential as the knowledge partner is organising the first-ever 'ETF MasterClass - Rise with India' a two-day event where industry experts would create awareness about ETFs. 

The event beginning on December 18 will span over six hours spread across two days, during which industry experts would hold classes to educate people about ETFs. The company said that tickets for the ETF MasterClass will be available on Paytm Insider for Rs. 99. Everyone buying the tickets will get a participation certificate and free brokerage worth Rs. 500 on Paytm Money. 

Mr. Ashishkumar Chauhan, MD & CEO of BSE will be inaugurating the event on December 18. Additionally, Paytm Money has brought together domestic and international speakers including renowned experts such as Deborah Fuhr - MD & Founder of ETFGI; S. Naren - ED & CIO of ICICI Prudential AMC, Radhika Gupta - MD & CEO of Edelweiss AMC and expert coaches to explain in a simple way to investors - how to build your investment portfolio using ETFs. There are dedicated classes for Equity ETFs, Gold ETFs, International Market ETFs and others. 

Varun Sridhar, CEO - Paytm Money said, “Our aim is to empower all Indians with wealth products that can help them build a solid, low cost and long term portfolio. To achieve this, creating awareness about all wealth creation tools is extremely important as many Indians are still unclear about the value and importance of these products. Investing in ETFs is relevant for first-time investors & a good long-term investment strategy as well. Our ETF MasterClass is being organised with a vision to educate investors about the immense potential that these hold and ICICI Prudential is a great knowledge partner. We expect ETF investing & trading to skyrocket & in line with the current ETF penetration in western countries. Over the next 12 months, we are aiming at around 1 lakh Indians to invest or trade in ETFs.”

The company said that investors can start by investing as low as Rs 16 in a simple and convenient way. Investors can get the live prices of an ETF on the Paytm Money app and place a sell order during the open market hours as they would do with stocks.