MUMBAI Ever since Prime Minister Narendra Modi brought down the surgical strike against black money in the form of demonetization in November 8, the Alibaba backed online wallet service PayTM found itself in news, and its usage growing by leaps and bounds.

It was further enhanced when the common rhetoric of demonetization shifted from 'curbing black money' to promoting a cash less economy in India, in line with the PM's digital India dream.

In fact, within hours of the Prime Minister’s announcement, the company registered a 200 per cent hike in number of app downloads and 250 per cent surge in number of overall transactions and transaction value.

The number of Saved Cards also grew by 30 per cent, pointing at a strong set of repeat customers the platform has now acquired. The company has noted 1000 per cent growth in money added to the wallet and 400 per cent growth in transaction value of offline payments.

If that wasn't enough, the service was in news after releasing an advertisement that belittled the sufferings of those affected by demonetization. It complied with the netizens with a revised advertisement that was later well received.

With usage on the platform reaching it all time high owing to the current slow influx of liquidity in the market, the company had arranged for a number of consumer friendly policies to make it easy for its users. The policies extended, not just for its online wallet and money transfer service but its digital market place as well.

According to an official statement from the ecommerce/ e wallet player, "Paytm has identified about 48 fraudulent users in the physical goods marketplace business, who were trying to game the company’s consumer friendly practices."

"Paytm regularly monitors its marketplace business to identify any fraudulent or suspicious behaviour. This is a part of the company’s security practices to ensure that genuine users are able to continuously avail the benefits brought to it by Paytm marketplace," a statement from the company reads.

Paytm marketplace has robust risk management practices and regularly reports users who try to game the company’s fair usage policies."

Considering the current series of developments arround PayTM, whether it is through paid campaigns or organic, demonetisation has plummeted PayTM's brand recall effortlessly.