Back in the day, when you wanted to pay Tom, you whipped out your cheque book, wrote Tom’s name in the payee field, and handed over the cheque to Tom. Things were simple.
Then banks introduced electronic payments. You no longer paid Tom. You paid Tom’s Account Number and IFSC Code / Sort Code / ABA Routing Number.
Banks and / or Regulators predicted that, over time, people would get over the comfort of making payments to people’s names. Didn’t happen.
Instead what happened was that people made mistakes while entering account number and other particulars required to make electronic payments. As a result, payments went nowhere or to wrong people, both of which are equally painful problems to solve, as I highlighted here.
Therefore, people continued to want to pay people, not numbers.
To alleviate their chronic pain of paying numbers, the banking and fintech industries launched new-age payment apps where people could make payments to Tom’s mobile phone number (or email address). Examples of such apps include PayTM, Venmo, PopMoney, etc. Here, the assumption was that a mobile number is a simple thing with 10 digits, it’s used by people everyday for a lot of things, so they won’t make mistakes while entering it to make a payment transaction.
While mobile number is way better than the long string of account number and sort codes, the Average Joe / Average Jane still seems to be anxious about paying numbers. Exhibit A: Quora:
How do I know the name of a Paytm user before paying a mobile number so as to prevent mistakes?
It’s not only the OP of this question. From time to time, even I go through the same anxiety of misdirecting my payment because Tom’s mobile number has changed or I make a mistake while keying it in or whatever. And often wish that I could make electronic payments by the payee’s name.
In a slightly different context, location identification app what3words uses a combination of three words to represent locations. Its founder argued with me on Twitter that words are better than numbers – even exotic words like bristle.slam.parsnip.
When the startup launched in UK a few years ago, I dismissed it as a solution seeking a problem, especially in places like India where
- people are used to numbers, thanks to frequent quoting of mobile phone number, Aadhaar number, PAN number, and so on, and
- knowledge of English is limited.
However, by making a successful entry into India, the startup has proved me wrong.
Ironically, what3words has partnered with trucking companies in India. Truck drivers were surely in my mind when I said English knowledge is not widespread in India. Go Figure!
Coming back to the OP’s question, it is NOT possible to know the name behind the mobile number to which you make a PayTM payment. You make a payment to a mobile number (or Virtual Payment Address or UPI ID or UPI Number in the case of UPI apps like Google Pay, Walmart PhonePe, etc.). Period.
You take the risk of losing your money if you make a payment to an unintended / wrongly-entered mobile number.
tl;dr: People like to buy from people but they need to get used to paying to numbers. C’est la Vie.
Once upon a time, PayTM used to display the name to which you were making the payment but the app was simply fetching the name from your phonebook. There was no guarantee that the displayed name was that of the true owner of the entered mobile number.
When I just checked, PayTM does not display any payee name at all. Instead the app says “Receiver will receive INR 1 in Paytm Wallet linked to 99******84” and asks the Payor to confirm the money transfer based on this message. (Since PayTM blocks screenshots, I cannot provide evidence for the above and will ask you to take my word for it.)
On a side note, UK launched Confirmation of Payee (CoP) two years ago. Banks that have implemented this service will display the name of the beneficiary before a payor initiates an FPS payment on their websites. However, FPS payments are not initiated by mobile number but by the good old account number and sort code combo. If CoP for PayTM were a thing, that would solve the OP’s problem.
For the uninitiated, FPS stands for Faster Payment Systems. It’s the Account-to-Account Realtime Payment (A2A RTP) of UK that was launched in May 2008. (Full Disclosure: I was program lead for implementing FPS for a Top 5 UK bank.)
Quora Link: https://qr.ae/pvkfCe