After notice from India Post, Paytm rebrands its Postcard service

HYDERABAD: Digital payments and ecommerce company Paytm has rebranded Postcard, its digital version of gifting money in an envelope on festive occasions, to Lifafa (which means envelope in Hindi) after India Post sent a notice to the company to stop using the term 'postcard'.

The notice cited the IPO Act and the established rules and regulations, saying the usage of the word 'postcard' is the sole prerogative of India Post.

Alibaba-backed Paytm launched its gifting solution Postcard about three weeks ago on the occasion of Raksha Bandhan and claims to have recorded half a million transactions since then.

"The rebranding exercise is limited to the name, while the core product remains the same," said Deepak Abbot, senior vice-president at Paytm. "The word 'lifafa' has a strong emotional connect in our country and rebranding our service to 'Paytm Lifafa' will help in further establishing it as the go-to platform to exchange greetings and gift money."

Paytm's gifting solution seems akin to the digital red packets by Chinese giants Alibaba and its rival Tencent, based on the Chinese tradition of gifting money in red envelopes during the Chinese Lunar New Year.

Paytm also plans to launch promotional activities to spread more awareness on the usage of its gifting product Lifafa, while gearing up to launch more product updates for the upcoming festive season.