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Magzter launches global interactive ad network in digital mags, ties up with SPH Singaore
NEW DELHI. Magzter, which claims to be the world’s largest digital magazine newsstand, today launched a new advertising platform in iOS and Android mobile apps. Magzter has over 7,700 magazines and over 28.5 million users around the world.
In what it calls a pioneering and innovative move, Magzter now enables advertisers to reach out to millions of potential customers by showcasing interactive advertisements inside the most sought after digital magazines.
Magzter also announced its strategic tie-up with SPH Magazines, Singapore for this advertising business. SPH Magazines, among world’s leading publishers and No. 1 in Singapore, will be representing Magzter for the Singapore region. With over 1,800 Indian publications from all leading publishing houses on Magzter, this would be a lucrative opportunity for publishing houses to monetise their online assets further. Globally, Magzter is targeting annual revenue of $100 million from advertising within next three years.
Unlike normal banner advertisements that are displayed on websites, interactive advertisements can have audio-visual content in them and they can have many other interactions apart from taking the user to advertiser’s landing page. The ads are full page swipeable advertisements and non intrusive to users and continues to give best magazine reading experience. An interactive advertisement could range from playing a video to adding a floating element to it.
Another important type is the ‘Subscription advertisement’, which helps to collect the user data instantly without moving away from the advertisement. Other exciting ways to create interactive advertisements include the usage of swipe interactions, event reminders and location pointers. Even mini games can be inserted as advertisements in between the pages of best-selling magazines. Currently, Magzter is offering full-page interactive HTML5 advertisements to ensure that the advertisements are responsive and automatically fit across all iOS and Android devices.
“At Magzter, we are extremely happy to introduce interactive advertisements in our Apple and Android apps. This is the first time anywhere in the world such ads are being made available inside digital magazines. The digital advertising industry still has a lot of untapped potential and the arrival of immersive and contextual advertisements on Magzter inside digital magazines is a definitive step in raising the bar. We are hoping to receive tremendous response from advertisers all over the World”, Magzter Inc CEO Girish Ramdas said.
“This will revolutionize the digital advertising industry soon.” added co-founder and president Vijay Radhakrishnan. “As our interactive advertisements appear in between the pages of a magazine, readers are most likely to get influenced by them since the advertisements are carefully chosen based on the location of the user and the category of the magazine. For instance, when a young woman is reading a fashion magazine on Magzter and she comes across an interactive advertisement to purchase a product she likes from the magazine, she is expected to go for it. Click throughs of our ad inventory is anywhere between 15-30 per cent. This is way high than standard CTR on the Web which would be less than 1 per cent,” he said.
The advertisers can choose their preferred location, category and language to target their ads, so that they can extend their reach to the niche group of readers. This not only gives them the freedom to choose even a small region where they need more visibility, but also gives them the power to make a bigger impact within a controlled budget. With Magzter having magazines across over 30 categories in over 60 languages and users from over 175 countries, the advertisers can choose the magazines and locations that best suit their needs.
SPH Magazines MD Joseph Lee said, “Our advertising partnership with Magzter is a significant move for us as advertising revenue is a key driver for our growth. We are also excited to represent Magzter in Singapore region to get advertisers onboard. Magzter has developed an excellent advertising platform for digital magazines and we were privileged to use it for the last 3 months. The results are extremely encouraging and our advertisers are very excited to see their interactive ads on our magazines. We have many of our titles playing ads through Magzter’s ad system.”
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PNB partners Kiwi to launch credit-enabled UPI for users
Targets 180 million customers; RuPay card offers 0.5 per cent to 1.5 per cent cashback
MUMBAI: Swipe, tap, or scan credit is quietly slipping into the rhythm of everyday payments, and Punjab National Bank wants in on the action. The state-run lender has partnered with Kiwi to roll out credit-enabled UPI payments for its 180 million customers, marking a significant push to blend traditional banking with India’s fast-evolving digital payments ecosystem.
At the centre of the collaboration is the launch of the PNB Kiwi Credit Card on the RuPay network. The card is designed with a digital-first approach, offering fully online onboarding and seamless integration with UPI, allowing users to transact via scan-and-pay while accessing credit.
The offering also brings in a rewards layer, with cashback ranging from 0.5 per cent to 1.5 per cent on online transactions, positioning the product as both a convenience play and a spending incentive.
The move comes as UPI continues to dominate India’s digital payments landscape, increasingly blurring the lines between debit-led transactions and credit access. For PNB, which operates over 10,000 branches around 60 per cent in semi-urban and rural areas, the partnership signals a targeted effort to extend formal credit to segments that have traditionally remained underserved.
The collaboration also reflects a broader industry shift, where banks and fintech platforms are converging to embed credit directly into payment flows, reducing friction while expanding access.
With RuPay credit cards gaining traction and UPI evolving beyond peer-to-peer transfers, the PNB–Kiwi tie-up positions both players at the intersection of scale, accessibility, and the next phase of digital finance in India.
