Paytm Money on Monday announced the launch of an innovative feature that allows users to apply for initial share-sales before the actual Initial Public Offer (IPO) opening in the markets. The move is expected to significantly increase the participation of retail users in IPO through the process.

Zomato is the first IPO on the leading digital brokerage launched with this feature, and thousands of applicants on the platform have already placed their orders over the last two days, Paytm Money said in a statement.

Due to the conventional application process, users are able to apply for an IPO only during select market hours over a window of three days.

A large proportion of the investing community does not trade actively and is likely to be busy during market hours, missing out on some of these IPOs. This is particularly true in the case of millennials and young investors.

The ‘pre-IPO open application’ feature was specifically designed to make the lives of such users better. Here, a user can now place an IPO order 24x7 on days when the feature is enabled.

The order is recorded on Paytm Money's system and sent to the exchange for processing whenever the IPO opens. The user is notified of her application status throughout the journey, to ensure a seamless experience.

There is also the issue of congestion in servers or networks experienced by some market participants during popular IPOs, driven by high demand during a short time span.

As this feature gains traction, it might be possible to spread out the pre-open IPO applications evenly during the market hours, reducing the load on exchanges and payment gateways, and ensuring a better experience for broad market participants.

“Interest in IPOs has surged over the last couple of months, and we have seen cases where users have missed out from applying because of tight schedules during market hours, and demand-led processing delays in the markets," Varun Sridhar, CEO of Paytm Money, said.

"We wanted to make the lives of our users easier and ensure that they don't miss out on good opportunities," he added.

Paytm Money said it has also launched a set of other advanced features in a bid to offer the most comprehensive IPO application experience to its users.

Users on Paytm Money can now complete IPO applications with a single click, apply via the shareholder category, and also track live IPO subscription numbers.