Now Pay 2% Extra for loading your PayTm Wallet with Credit Cards

By | March 10, 2017

Paytm is a household name these days. More so, after the demonetization move by the Govt. of India that took place. These days you can see merchants in many parts of the country accepting payments through paytm. I too was happy with this as I got to use my credit cards more and less of cash thus making me earn more points for the same amount of money that I’ll be spending anyway. This is changing from today.

PayTm starts charging 2% extra on Credit Cards

A few days back on 6th February, 2017, Paytm conducted an online survey on their twitter channel:

I was very vocal about it and I decided to stop using it if this will be the case.

Today after about a month after that poll, Paytm actually started charging 2% fee on Credit Cards. However, I can confirm that they are NOT charging any extra fees for loading money into the wallet from Debits Cards.

What are the finer points that we have to keep in mind?

  • If you were using credit cards to load money into Paytm wallet through your credit cards and thereby earning RPs through it, it’ll be a serious setback for you as you’ll in most cases lose more than you gain.
  • If you still want to use Paytm, you’ll have to use Debit Cards which are still being allowed to load money into the Paytm wallet for FREE.
  • If you are using Paytm for any recharges or buying anything from Paytm marketplace, Paytm will NOT CHARGE any extra fee even if you pay through your credit cards. The reason is that in this case, Paytm charges the merchant itself.
  • So, if you want to use Paytm as just a payment facilitator and thus pay for recharges, bill payments or buying stuff from Paytm marketplace, you STILL USE CREDIT CARDS.
  • However, using Credit Cards to fill up your Paytm Wallet is a strict no no.
  • They have said in their blog post that if the wallet is loaded through credit cards, they will issue a 2% coupon and thus there will be effective reversal of charge. However, one needs to make a minimum of ₹250 transaction for the qualifying for this offer. I don’t know if this will go down well with users like me. Surely, this doesn’t go down well with me at least.
  • As of now, other wallet services like Mobikwik, Freecharge or JioMoney are not charging any extra fees for adding money to their wallets through credit cards. So try using them instead of Paytm from now on if you want to add balance. Or Pay directly by credit card for any recharge on Paytm instead of filling up your wallet first and then using the wallet balance to do the recharge.
  • Since, Paytm is the market leader among all the wallets, it is yet to be seen if other wallet companies follow this path or not.
  • With Alibaba holding a major stake in Paytm and the changes they have been making in recent times, I am sure there will be a lot of news that is going to make headlines in the days to come.

If you don’t use credit cards and use your debit cards only for your expenses, this decision won’t affect your workflow at all.

Update on March 10th: 2% is no more levied on credit cards for wallet loading.

Let us know if this decision from Paytm is justified or not? Will you stop using Paytm for adding balance through your Credit Cards?

Author: Abhishek Roy

Abhishek is a Doctor by profession and is passionate about Technology and Photography. He pursues his hobbies during the little free time he gets and likes to make the most out of it. He has special interest in Credit/Debit Cards, Reward Points, Air Miles and Travel Hacks.

47 thoughts on “Now Pay 2% Extra for loading your PayTm Wallet with Credit Cards

  1. Jay

    Frankly speaking, I was one of the guy who just misused their system. I used to load money to wallet and transfer it back to my bank account. I used only for one purpose just to reach the threshold level of 4lakh on my Amex Travel Card. Though my usage on others cards are like more than 20 lakhs per annum but still used this trick 🙁

    Reply
    1. Siddharth

      Many did so during Demonetization which led to this decision it seems.

      Reply
    2. Jagannath Samal

      Even I did the same and rotated money thru my amex card

      Reply
    3. ASHU

      doing such high value transaction, wont it bring under IT radar?

      Reply
      1. Abhishek Roy Post author

        Yes, there are chances of being flagged by the system.

        Reply
    4. Abhishek Roy Post author

      Well, I never misused their platform. It should be that they should charge money for transferring to bank or put a limit to the monthly transfer. Since, due to this move the genuine users are being penalised. And that is why I’m dead against this move.

      Reply
  2. Gokulnath

    You cant add money to the wallet using some of the credit cards which offers best rewards points and they mentioned in their blog post. Already they aware of these loop holes and now they blocked it totally.

    Reply
    1. Siddharth

      OOps, is it? Looks like FinTech Companies are getting smarter these days.

      Reply
      1. Krishna R M

        Yes. My colleague is not able to load money to wallet using Yes First Preferred Credit Card.

        Reply
  3. Prashant Gupta

    Both my amex and hdfc regalia are blocked. Infact i never used hdfc for adding money only used for purchase.

    Reply
  4. Amit Garg

    I still have a solution to load my paytm wallet with credit card without 2% charges

    Reply
  5. Madhur gurbani

    I also have a solution to load money in paytm without 2% charges on credit card.

    Reply
  6. Mandeep

    Loading Paytm through Uber? I see that they were not charging extra 2% but my transaction did not go through as they probably have blocked my card.
    Also, if you have a Citi card then you can re-charge from the Citi app and you won’t be charged extra. Tried n tested.

    Reply
  7. Madhur gurbani

    As I see in paytm the charges are now disappeared but in morning I have seen them , looks like they have faced some loss or orders from government.

    Reply
  8. Mahendra

    HI Abhishek Roy,

    Now they removed 2% charge on adding balance from credit card. Just now I verified. Now it is free. No additonal charges.

    Reply
  9. Krishna R M

    Paytm suspends 2% fee on recharge via credit cards for customers convenience.

    Reply
  10. MANU KUMAR

    Banks have got really smart, Earlier HDFC allow payment of Credit Card bills through their BillPay using the debit cards,

    I used it to Get 1% extra reward over and above the CC rewards..

    Now that facility is blocked.

    Reply
  11. Amann

    Hey Sid

    Do you use paytm wallet? Have you had issues adding wallet balance using credit card?

    I recentky have started having issues with PAYTM. They are NOT ACCEPTING credit cards to add money and insisting I use other options like debit card, UPI and Netbanking. I only use paytm to make payments and have never transfered money to my bank account from PAYTM.

    Seems PAYTM is having financial trouble. Either that or they are following PhonePe which does not allow wallet balance using credit card to save on costs.

    Either way, I’m going to reduce or close paytm as such signs are not good for the customers.

    Let me know what you think.

    Reply
    1. Siddharth

      Yes i do use Paytm and i’ve not done bank transfer either. So far my ac seems to be fine.

      Reply
    2. Prashant Gupta

      I have been adding money through credit cards regulary on paytm with no problem and charges. They first show upi option which nowadays everyone is showing. I pay to everyone with paytm whether its a chai wala or vegetable seller and most of the kirana stores have also started using paytm.

      Reply
    3. sujit kumar hota

      If you load wallet thru credit card and transfer to bank many times a month they block the credit card load feature for 30 days

      Reply
  12. Shasidhar

    Loading Paytm wallet through virtual card is now not allowed. I did this till Nov 2018, but from Dec it says “not allowed”. They still allow the use of Credit card to load wallet as of today.
    Maybe they are targeting individuals who are high spenders through Paytm wallet who use credit credit card to load Paytm wallet.

    Reply
  13. Abhi

    They demanding a “nominal” 4.65% if I use my Amex, or 4.07% for visa/mc.

    Reply
  14. Pranay

    I found a way to circumvent the extra charges.
    Given that Paytm uses the same wallet for FasTag and payments, so, recharging your Paytm FasTag will load money into your Paytm wallet.
    I was able to recharge the Paytm FasTag using GPay with Axis Bank Select Visa credit card without any additional charges and probably also earn the reward points. The downside to GPay is it only supports Visa credit/debit cards of Axis, SBI, Kotak and Visa credit card of HSBC for now and only on Android.
    Recharging on PayZapp only allows till ₹100 for Paytm FasTag and PhonePe only allows UPI so, if somebody finds any other payment getaway for recharging Paytm FasTag using a Credit card then do use that.

    Reply
    1. Sharathkumar Anbu

      To be honest, you should not have revealed this trick, once many people start using it, that loophole also will get blocked. Given that volume of transactions may be less since it’s directly related to owning a car with Paytm fastag, still maintaining it as secret would have been better.

      Reply
      1. Pranay

        It felt a bit selfish to keep it to myself and given that the FasTag recharges look like very genuine transactions so I thought to share it. But your point seems more valid now that I think about it.

        Reply
    2. Sharathkumar Anbu

      Today when I checked Google Pay stopped accepting Debit and Credit cards for Fastag recharge. It was working till end of last month. Is it same with everyone?

      Reply
  15. Varun

    Is there any credit card which gives full/partial rewards points for adding money to mobikwik wallet.

    Reply
  16. Abhi

    An update, paytm now allows you to add money using CC via zomato/Uber only upto 2K a month, down from 10K.

    Reply
    1. RAGIB

      I too was able to add 2k only this month.

      I don’t know wheather it’s the new limit or not.

      Reply
  17. Darshdeep Singh Grewal

    Facing same issue of 2k limit. I had already rotated 4.5k so can’t do anymore, another thing is that in uber, it automatically gets logged out.

    Reply
  18. Abhi

    Unable to load paytm using Amex anymore when I try through zomato, swiggy or Uber. It says card not supported. Another bummer from paytm?

    Reply
  19. Abhi

    Paytm isn’t allowing me to load using credit card via uber/zomato/swiggy. Anyone able to, or they ve generally stopped allowing?

    Reply
  20. Akhil

    Paytm has started charging even when loading through uber. Any other option of loading Paytm wallet with paying charges or are the days over of free wallet loading?

    Reply
  21. Abhi

    Post the RBI order on paytm, not sure how it may impact paytm co-branded cards. But cards which have movie offers on paytm, cashbacks etc will be affected, most likely even merchant QRs of paytm will make way for phonepe and gpay ones. It’s a big setback for avid paytm users and practically curtains down for paytm, until they can find a way to meet all the compliances and get back on their feet. It’s like banning Uber or Indigo or Jio. Paytm was already barred from onboarding new users.

    Reply
    1. Siddharth

      I guess that’s at-least 1 Year of service disruption if not more. I’ve gone ahead and cleared the wallet balance, good to take the app off from mobile for sometime.

      Reply

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