What the business is
Paytm is a SoftBank-backed Indian fintech app for UPI payments and financial services
The bet
Cricket-season UPI cashback promos drive payments growth on Paytm — worth redesigning twice to keep them inside Google's rules
How it started
Paytm ran UPI cashback promotions, including the Paytm Cricket League sticker game, as an in-app growth engine for its payments business
What happened
Google blocked the app for a few hours on September 18 under its anti-gambling policy; Paytm removed the cashback feature, called the takedown 'arbitrary' and 'biased', and the app was restored
What has to be true
Cricket-season cashback was a proven UPI growth engine worth protecting through the IPL window.
Google's Play Store is effectively the only distribution channel on Android, so prompt compliance restored the app fastest.
The sticker-and-milestone redesign kept the promotion's economics while fitting the letter of Google's policy.
What can be applied
When a platform gatekeeper sets the rules, redesign the growth mechanic around them fast — fighting publicly doesn't keep your distribution.
Aftermath
As of September 29, 2020 the cashback promotion was live again in tweaked form, and Paytm was still publicly disputing Google's action while operating inside its rules.
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The sources
- Fintech major Paytm brings back UPI cashback, scratch cards economictimes.indiatimes.com