Digital brokerage platform Paytm Money will now let users apply for Initial Public Offerings (IPO) before the actual IPO Opening in the markets, the company said in a statement. Paytm Money is the first in India to offer a “Pre-Open IPO Application” and this feature is expected to significantly boost the participation of retail users in IPOs.
Food delivery giant Zomato’s IPO is the first to be launched on Paytm Money with this feature and the platform has already received thousands of orders over the last 2 days, the company said.
This new feature will allow users to place orders for IPOs throughout the week. The order placed will be recorded in the company’s system and will be sent across to the stock exchange for processing whenever the IPO opens and the users will be notified about the application process throughout the journey.
“Interest in IPOs has surged over the last couple of months, and we have seen cases where users have missed out from applying because of issues like tight schedules during market hours, and demand-led processing delays in the markets. We wanted to make the lives of our users easier and ensure that they don’t miss out on good opportunities,” said Varun Sridhar, CEO of Paytm Money.
The conventional IPO application process in the Indian markets allows users to apply for an IPO only during select market hours over a window of 3 days. People who do not trade actively and stay busy with other things during these specific hours tend to miss out on applying for these IPOs. In addition to that, the servers and networks associated with the markets often get congested when there is a surge in demand during a short time span, leading to difficulties. Shortly, this feature could be spread out evenly during the market hours, reducing the load on exchanges and payment gateways and further enhancing the experience for the user.
