Paytm Canada no longer exists, but you can still pay your property taxes with a credit card. Credit card points are amazing. I love my cash back, I love my Aeroplan points, I love all my credit card points. It’s a great way to ‘reward yourself’ for your necessary (and sometimes unnecessary) spending. Want to pay property taxes with your credit card ? Didn’t think it was possible before? It’s possible! Read on to find out how to hack your property taxes and utility bills and collect even more credit card points. Here is my Paytm review.
Last updated October 2019
Paying Property Taxes, Utilities with Your Credit Card
If you’re anything like me, you may have always wanted to pay your property taxes and utilities (like BC Hydro or FortisBC gas bills) with your credit card so that you can collect credit card points or get cash back. This was not possible until just recently. Before, you had to make a bill payment and add a payee (e.g. the city you live in or the utility you are paying, such as BC Hydro) from your bank account, and then pay from your bank account. Recently, these utility companies allow you to pay for your utility bills with a credit card but they add on a service charge because of the credit card usage.
Now, this has changed and there are ways you can pay for things that traditionally did not allow for credit card payments with your credit card.
This is made possible with companies such as Plastiq and Paytm Canada, which allow you to pay any bill with a credit card. For Plastiq, you can use any card (such as American Express, Mastercard, Visa) but you will just have to tack on a 2.5% fee to use a card.
As of November 1, 2019, for Paytm Canada, you will get charged a 1.75% convenience fee for bill payments (property taxes, utilities, tuition payments) when you pay with a Visa or Mastercard credit card. Prior to this, if you used Mastercard, it was free. Then in August they introduced the 1.75% fee for property taxes and tuition payments. This new fee makes it much less palatable to use Paytm and your credit card to pay your bills.
When you spend $1 you can collect 1 Paytm point.
However, there are restrictions for collecting points with Paytm:
- 1000 points per month for tax bill payments
- 500 points per month for mobility and utility bill payments
- 500 points per month for other categories of bill payments
- 500 points per month for tuition
Paytm recommends splitting up your property tax and tuition payments to maximize on the Paytm points.
If you get cash back from your credit card for your property taxes, this is no small chunk of change. If you live in Hamilton, Ontario for example and have to pay $12,620 in annual property taxes on your million dollar home, and you can get points for this from your credit card, however you’ll have to account for the new 1.75% convenience fee.
You can get Paytm points for this.
Let’s say you had to pay in two instalments, of the $12,620. You would get 1000 Paytm points in the first instalment and another 1000 Paytm points in the second instalment. That’s 2000 Paytm points. Let’s say you verified your account (another 1000 points) and referred a friend (5000 points), that’s 8000 Paytm points. You only need 5000 Paytm to give you a free Tim Hortons gift card.
Related: Equifax vs Transunion, Why the 100 point Difference?
What is Paytm Canada?
Paytm Canada has been in the Fintech business since 2014 and is based out of Toronto, Canada. What does Paytm stand for? Paytm stands for Payment Through Mobile.
They offer a mobile payment and commerce platform. Paytm is a payment processor. Recently they launched a mobile app that supports peer-to-peer payments, earn cash back rewards, and pay bills with no fees. They are a Money Services Business which allows consumers the ability to pay for utility bills, property taxes or city taxes, electricity bills online.
The ‘original’ Paytm is actually India’s biggest Fintech startup and was created in 2010 by Vijay Shekhar Sharma. He’s amazing as he’s under 40 years old and created a multi-billion dollar company. He is from a small town and is now India’s youngest billionaire! As of January 2018, Paytm is valued at $10 billion, according to Wikipedia. Paytm customers in India use the app to pay for everything in daily life, including groceries, travel, and utilities. Paytm has 350 million users in India moving their money.
Recently, Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway invested $346 million in for a 2% stake in One97 Communications (Paytm’s parent company). If Warren Buffett is backing Paytm, that’s HUGE. Also, Alibaba is backing it, which is also huge.
Y’all know how much I love Warren Buffett (and Charlie Munger).
In Canada, the CEO of Paytm Canada (Paytm Labs) is Harinder Takhar. He used to work for Nokia and Research in Motion before he headed to Toronto to start up Paytm Canada.
How Does Paytm Canada Make Money?
How does Paytm Canada make money? This was what boggled my mind the most when I looked into signing up for Paytm. According to Paytm, they make money through selling their rewards cards. When you purchase a rewards card using your Paytm points, Paytm Canada gets paid. Even though they charge you a convenience fee using Paytm to pay your tuition or property tax, it is to cover their own costs apparently.
Is Paytm Safe?
According to Paytm, they claim to be Canada’s most secure app (that’s a pretty big claim, in my opinion!).
This is how Paytm keeps your personal information safe:
- Paytm uses the same encryption technology that Canadian banks use
- Paytm keeps the transaction limits low (for example, if you want to pay a large property tax bill, you will have to split it up in a few payments)
- Paytm also don’t sell your data
- Paytm doesn’t store your credit card or debit card information on their platform
How Does Paytm Work
So to set up Paytm and pay a bill:
- Â Download the Paytm app
- Â Put in the Paytm promo code (PTM8209511), and then fill in the information
- Â You’ll arrive at the Paytm login page
- Then you click on “my bills” and “Add a New Biller”.
- Search on the biller and then add your account number for that particular biller.
- They remind you to pay your bill (they email you) which is nice.
- Then you just pay your bill through the app. It’s not considered a cash advance on your credit card, just a bill payment.
- You could set up a schedule for your bill payment instead.
On my credit card, my utility bill BC Hydro payment looks like this:
Here’s what my City of Vancouver Property Taxes looks like paid on my credit card through Paytm with my Rogers Bank World Elite Mastercard where get 1.75% cash back:
How to Make Paytm’s New 1.75% Convenience Fee Work For You
Unfortunately, as mentioned, Paytm has made it much less desirable to pay your bills with your credit card because of this new 1.75% convenience fee. There is a bit of silver lining to this cloud though and you could make it still advantageous for you to use Paytm, despite having to pay the 1.75% convenience fee.
Use Paytm with a high cash back promotional rate
- For example, the TD Cash Back Visa Infinite gives you 10% cash back (up to $2000 spend) for the first three months and the first year is free. After the 1.75% convenience fee, you are still 8.25% “up”. However, note that this can only be used for the first three months.
- CIBC Dividend Visa Infinite card also gives you 10% cash back on the first 4 statements, up to a $2000 spend. However, this card is not first year free at the moment and is a $99 annual fee.
Use Paytm when you need to meet the minimum spend
- If you’re credit card churning and you can’t think of anything to spend money on except for a big tuition payment or a big property tax bill payment, even though you have to fork up 1.75% convenience fee, it will still come out positive with the credit card bonus that you will get. Some minimum spends are $1000, some are $3000 and sometimes it is hard to find everyday routine purchases for this minimum spend.
Or maybe don’t use Paytm
- If you don’t want to pay a fee at all, you might want to think about using Canadian Tire Financial credit cards to pay your property taxes, utility bills, and tuition as there is no convenience fees for these and you get 1% “cash back” to use at Sport Chek and Canadian Tire. You can save up for that lawn mower 😉
Paytm Support
- They have a Paytm customer care team that’s open from Monday to Friday from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm EST.
- The Paytm Canada contact number is 1-888-878-7761 or they can be reached by email.
- I’ve reached out to them one time because I had trouble paying my bill or downloading the app and they were helpful and quite responsive.
- I’ve paid a number of bills so far (my BC Hydro bill is billed every two months and my property taxes are only twice a year).
This is what the Paytm login home screen looks like:
This is what the Paytm home screen looks like when you log in.
Here’s my Paytm Canada review:
Paytm Positives
- There are tons of billers available (and you can scroll through them on the app). Some examples are Enbridge, BC Hydro, Fortis BC Natural Gas, Union Gas Limited. Even tuition to universities can be paid for through the payment processor with a credit card- however, as of August 2019, you will be charged a convenience fee of 1.75% for tuition now.
- You can get Paytm rewards ON TOP of the cash back on your credit card.
- There are lots of ways to get bonus Paytm rewards to redeem for gift cards from companies such as Uber, Tim Hortons, Esso, Just Eat, Amazon.ca
- They have a Paytm Canada customer care team that you can PHONE (You know how you can’t reach anyone to talk to on the phone nowadays and you just get forwarded to a ‘forum’ of questions and answers? It drives me crazy). However, they are just available Monday to Friday.
- It allows you to sort of do a manufactured spend when you need ‘minimum spends’ for credit card travel hacking if you have a big property tax bill. You’re paying it anyway (I hope) so why not double dip the return? However, as noted earlier, they changed this as of November 2019 and you will charged a 1.75% convenience fee.
Related: No Fee Cash Back Alternatives to the MBNA World Elite MastercardÂ
Paytm Negatives
- There is a 1.75% convenience fee now (as of November 1 2019) for all categories when you pay by Visa or Mastercard (previously it was 0% for Mastercard users)
- You can only use it as an app (there’s no browser edition). I’d rather not have it on my phone because I use it so infrequently and I was running out of storage space on my iPhone, so downloaded it on my iPad.
- They change the Paytm rewards structure without giving advance notice
- Some of the billers that they list as ‘accepting’ do not actually accept Paytm payments, for example, I got excited to see that maybe I could fund my Questrade account with my credit card, but Questrade doesn’t actually accept account funding from payment processors like Plastiq and Paytm.
- One downside is the restrictions for collecting Paytm Rewards points (see above)
- They’ve been reminding me to pay my property tax bill multiple times even though I’ve paid it already (I paid it a few months early) so it’s a bit glitchy for that.
- You don’t really get any confirmation message from your biller (like property taxes) that it goes through but you get confirmation on your credit card and confirmation from Paytm
Paytm Rewards Program
The Paytm points value is: $5 for 5000 Paytm points.
Here is the Paytm Rewards chart so you can see how you can collect Paytm points easily:
Here are the Paytm Rewards that you can redeem for gift cards and even Paytm cash (so you can use your money to pay for bills, full circle, I know):
The even have Holt Renfrew gift cards too.
The best thing about these new changes is that the minimum redemption is 5000 Points!
That means you can get a Tim Horton’s $5 gift card (a coffee and a donut) just for signing up and paying a bill that is more than $50!
Here are the gift cards you can get with your Paytm points:
Amazon.ca Paytm Reward:
- 10,000 points= $10 gift card
- 25,000 points= $25 gift card
- 500 points + $48= $50 gift card
Tim Hortons Paytm Reward:
- 5000 points= $5 gift card
- 25,000 points= $25 gift card
- 25,000 points + $25= $50 gift card
I’ve had no issues claiming the gift cards, it comes in automatically and is located in the “My Pocket” section of the app. The gift cards (at least the ones I’ve claimed so far) are all electronic, so you will need to have access to the app (i.e. data) when you are redeeming your e.g. Ikea gift card.
I also redeemed for an Amazon.ca gift card and it was very easy, you get the Amazon.ca code right away which you can apply to your Amazon.ca account.
Paytm Canada Promo Code and Paytm Canada Referral Code
Now for the best part!
This is me before I purchase or sign up for anything- I always do a frantic search for a promo code.
Use my Paytm promo code PTM8209511 to get 5000 Paytm bonus points when you sign up for Paytm Canada and pay your first bill of $50 or more. I’ll get 5000 points as well (thank you!).
The minimum redemption for a Paytm reward is 5000 points, which gives you a $5 Tim Hortons gift card! Or whatever $5 gift card you want to get.
Sign up here with this link on your phone or tablet and enter PTM8209511 for the Paytm Sign Up Bonus.
Related:
Have you used Paytm Canada before?
What do you think of it?
GYM is a 30 something millennial interested in achieving financial freedom through disciplined saving, dividend and ETF investing, and living a minimalist lifestyle. Before you go, check out my recommendations page of financial tools I use to save and invest money. Don’t forget to subscribe for blog updates, a free dividend yield spreadsheet, and the free Young Money Bootcamp eCourse.
I currently use the Canadian Tire World Elite MasterCard to do my bill payments. The bills that I can pay are similar to PayTM and I get a 1% reward in Canadian Tire money.
I also have the Rogers Bank World Elite MasterCard that you have, I think hat it’s worthwhile only if you get a nice base reward when you charge to your credit card. So using PayTM and Rogers Bank World Elite is worth the effort. For the 1 PayTM point per dollar of bill payment, that’s a horrible reward percentage in my opinion.
@Leo- Oh, this is meant for bills that normally only accept a bank payment or bill payment from a bank instead of a credit card. Are you able to pay your property taxes directly with a credit card? I can’t do it here for the property taxes or BC Hydro payments unless I use the Paytm- they usually only accept banking bill payments instead of credit cards.
The Canadian Tire World Elite MasterCard lets my pay all my utility bills and property tax. I get one percent of the value (in Canadian Tire money) of the bills that I paid. I can also pay tuition too, but I am no longer I school.
It really turns me off if a company changes its reward policy that often.
@Leo-Ooohhhh I get it now! Haha, I thought I wasn’t being clear. I didn’t know about that. Thanks I learned something, that’s really good that a CT World Elite MC is offering that. Yeah, it’s not good that Paytm keeps changing their rewards program- not cool!! I’ll have to look into the Canadian Tire card!
I love my cash back too GYM. And property taxes are one of my largest expenses. But I have never paid by credit card. I think when I have looked into it in the past, my county always charged a fee to pay by credit card therefore negating the benefit. Tom
@Tom- Maybe they will bring paytm into the US or something similar- only a matter of time!
Hi GYM, that’s a hilarious meme. Your desk and keyboard must be a heavy-duty one, as that’s quite a stress test for them, haha.
Yeah, property tax is a big expense. We write a check to pay. I think there is some fee involved if we use credit card. I didn’t pay much attention to it. I noticed the property tax in Vancouver is only 0.25% of the property value. That’s very low. Here it is around 2 to 2.5%, and most of it goes to the schools.
@Helen- Haha! You know, once I spent FOUR HOURS looking for a hotel promo code, and I saved $5. It seems low but property taxes seem to add up all the time!
I would love to get points for all my utilities and property taxes but same here, we have to pay a fee to pay with credit cards. I don’t download any money apps on my phone, I did once and got hacked. I learn I shouldn’t play with things I don’t understand…except blogging:)
But I will look into the Canadian Tire Mastercard:)
@Caroline- Really!?? Which money app was it? Like your credit card got fraud on it?
Nice! It’s a good thing they didn’t add London’s property tax to that graph, it would have been off the charts. We’re paying over 1.6% of our home value here, so $16,000+ on a $1M home (Although a $1M+ home would be a mansion).
I’m going to try this. Getting some money back from property taxes would be nice.
@Owen- Oh gosh, I didn’t know it was so high! That’s very high. I didn’t realize Vancouver’s was considered low, but if you imagine 1.6% on a $3 million house, that’s $48K!!! Yeah, I feel like I ‘waste’ the spend if I don’t get points from it somehow. It’s funny how we all get used to getting points or cash back on all our purchases.
If I use PayTM to pay for my property tax, utility bills etc in Markham, Ontario of Canada, will my Master Card company considered this is a “Cash Advance” and charge me for a fee ?
@Charles- No it is not considered a cash advance. I was scared to set it up initially too with PayTM, but it just shows up as a regular payment on the credit card. The line entry on the credit card statement says “Paytm City of Vancouver” when I pay my property taxes. I’ll update my post to show this.
Well, you talked me into it! I signed up and (hopefully) paid my property taxes. With my MBNA World Elite m/c I should get nearly $70 in cash back, so it’s worth a try. Enjoy your Timmie’s coffee (or 5,000 point equivalent)!
@Laura- Wow thanks Laura!! Appreciate it 🙂 Nice $70 cash back sounds good, but dang $4000 in property taxes!
Thanks for the information. Signed up using your referral code and will try to take advantage of this.
Cheers.
@Rich- Thanks Rich!! 🙂
@Aditi- Thanks for visiting 🙂
Too bad my cash back card is a visa, my Mastercard offers Airlines which are nowhere near as good.
Nice review though, I’ll consider using it if they don’t charge 2.5% for visa ?.
Thank you!
@Future money bags- Yeah, that’s the downside, if you don’t have a Mastercard. I use the 1.75% no fee Rogers Bank World Elite.
So, just to clarify, is PAYTM eligibility determined by the credit card you use (eg, Rogers World Elite), or by the payee deeming that they now accept CC payments? I’ve never been able to pay City of Toronto property taxes by CC, but if I can engineer this payment via PAYTM, that would be great. 6 payments of $1000 = 6000 points, plus 1.75% CC bonus, double bonus.
Is there a website to prescreen which CC and which utility payment combos are acceptable? thanks all.
@Davey- No, you can use any mastercard to pay your bills, you just add a credit card once you’re registered. They don’t accept Visa, but they accept Amex, but they charge 3% convenience fee for use of the Amex. With Mastercard there’s no charge. City of Toronto- Property Taxes is included as one of the billers.
Careful property tax and education are charged a fee!!,. Misinformation
Visa Credit & Mastercard Credit: No fees (exclu. property /education taxes)
Visa Debit & Mastercard Debit: No fees (exclu. property /education taxes)
Credit Card : 1.75%
Debit Card : 1.25%
Hi Amelia, I updated the post recently to reflect these fees, see above, thanks:
“On top of this though, they are changing how you pay your property taxes. As of August 2019, there is now a convenience fee of 1.75% to pay your property taxes and tuition payments with a credit card.”