India’s favorite mobile payment app Paytm, has been removed by Google from its Playstore, with the tech giant citing repeated policy violations from the financial services app. The app is still available on Apple App Store.

On searching for Paytm on Playstore, users will just see Paytm for Business, PaytmMall and Paytm Money. The legacy Paytm app, which is the biggest and more established competitor of Google Pay, is not longer available on the PlayStore. Google has also pulled out Paytm First Games.

Users and netizens have reacted to removal of Paytm from Google Play Store. Here are some of them

Thank you so much @GooglePlay for removing such fraud app @Paytm . I was working hard to take legal action against paytm. It will be good if paytm closed permanently. Lot of people facing fraudulent activities from paytm. Worst app. #paytmdowndown #paytm pic.twitter.com/6WyWjeIYC6

— Piyush (@tweet2piyushh) September 18, 2020

People who lost their Rs.10 due to #Paytm pic.twitter.com/FYEyK7z1e4

— Muskaan 😎👌🏻 (@Rock__aby) September 18, 2020

Google pulls #Paytm app from Play Store for repeat policy violations.

Paytm rn : pic.twitter.com/FT2wZIAe4f

— Heisenberg (@methmemer) September 18, 2020

“We have policies to protect users from potential harm. When an app violates these policies, we notify the developers of the violation and remove the app from Google Play until the developers brings the app into compliance. In cases where there are repeat violations, we may take serious action that may include terminating Google Play Developer accounts. Policies are applied and enforced on all developers consistently.” – Suzanne Frey, Vice President, Product, Android Security and Privacy.

Google, in its explanation on the removal of the app said that Paytm violates its gambling policies and promotes unregulated gambling and sports betting in India. Paytm’s marquee app promotes fantasy sports services within its regular app is repeatedly violating Google’s Plays Store policies, which prohibits online gambling and unregulated gambling apps that allow sports betting, as per sources.

In a crack down on online gambling, Google has sent an email to many app developers to pause all advertising campaigns in their apps to that drive users to websites that offer betting or online gambling. Further, Google has also initiated manual intervention (Manual Action) on sites that have backlinks to such sites.