Top Mobile Wallets in India


With cash crunch going on in today’s Indian economy, mobile wallets can come to your rescue in this critical time. In fact, instead of using credit or debit card transactions, India has preferred mobile payments as an alternative solution for transacting online. Nandan Nilekani, one of India’s most famous technology guru, while supporting demonetization of Rs. 1,000 and Rs. 500 currency notes, said digital transactions will increase in the next three to six months to a rate that would otherwise have taken three to six years. In this context, it is the need of the hour to know about these technologies and how to leverage them.

Mobility Tool for Payments

A mobile wallet is a virtual wallet which is available online, using which you can make the payments. To load cash in the mobile wallet, the user can make the payment from their banks using online banking, or via credit/debit cards. The user can also request their friends to transfer the money to their mobile wallets using other wallets.

There are multiple mobile wallets available in the market with varied features. Almost same. The rate at which different mobile wallets (or m-wallets) are getting introduced in the Indian market is striking. Mobile payments are becoming a great opportunity for the new start-ups and young entrepreneurs. In this article, we are going to review on top mobile wallet apps and how they are changing the mode of payment.

PayTm

PayTM is one of the fastest growing organization and has been riding on the wave of change. PayTM is operated by One97 Communications, which has its headquarters in Noida. Paytm has

received the mobile wallet service license from Reserve Bank of India in 2014, and within the end of this year, it has aimed to cross the 100-million users mark, although it has already crossed the mark of 158 million registered users.

With its mobile-first strategy, Paytm does more than 30 million orders digitally and logistics of physical goods every month. Paytm wallet is India’s dominating mobile payment service platform. It has gained in popularity and the Twitter tag #PaytmKaro has been trending quite a lot.

PayTM also offers its users to transfer money to their bank accounts funds to your bank account or in your friend’s bank account using Paytm on mobile at a nominal charge. This method which is also known as IMPS (Immediate Payment Service to make payment through bank account using your mobile) offers more reliability than cash.

Oxigen

The Oxigen wallet (e-wallet) is powered by Oxigen Services India Private Ltd. It was founded by Pramod Saxena having a tie-up with a South African company, Blue Label Telecom in 2004, as a payment solutions provider. It is one of the oldest electronic wallet technology player in the market. Although, it ventured into mobile payment services market in 2014.

Oxigen Wallet is a prepaid non-bank wallet that is approved by RBI. The best part about Oxigen wallet is because it is certified by RBI, it is pretty reliable, secure and bank grade.

Mobikwik

Mobikwik was launched in 2009 as a mobile recharge and bill payments application. With the exclusive service provided by Mobikwik, people can share money with their friends and family over

their preferred social networks and messaging platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp, Google+, and Twitter. It allows users to use their wallet to recharge their mobile phones, pay bills and shop across a large number of online merchants.

Mobikwik has recently launched a new feature for their Gurgaon users, who do not wish to make payment using debit cards, credit cards or online payments. For such people there is an alternative, where Mobikwik employees will pick up cash from users and load it to their corresponding Mobikwik wallet.

PayUMoney

PayUMoney, a Gurgaon-based e-wallet company, started with a payment gateway service. It has the

award winning technology to support payment gateway options to online businesses. It provides the free and premium accounts and is associated with multiple merchants and partners.

This e-wallet by PayUMoney enables the user to store cash and pay for various services and transactions. In order to distinguish themselves from other players, they provide a wide range of benefits like one-touch checkout and discounts, cashback offers on every transaction made, instant refunds on order cancellations and buyer protection to ensure the right purchase and customer satisfaction.

Vodafone m-Pesa

Vodafone’s m-Pesa claims to be the one having the largest cash out network. The bouquet of services allows the users to send money to anyone, to make mobile recharges, DTH and utility payments.

Money can also be transferred to bank via IMPS service with a nominal charge.

The drawback with Vodafone m-Pesa is that it is limited to only Vodafone users. It has also started with 5% cashback offer per customer and almost earning Rs. 25 per month for a limited period of time. Although, the users can then withdraw or receive the money at any of the 85,000+ m-pesa agents across India.

Freecharge

FreeCharge was founded in 2010 and was initially catering the mobile recharge services. It was

launched as mobile recharge platform and not as a mobile wallet. The users can still use it as a wallet with the money to be used for selective services only. Every time the users get their mobile recharged, they get some discount coupons to use.

The company is acquired by SnapDeal in April 2015 and after which it has expanded its services. You can now pay electricity bills, can make mobile recharges, DTH recharges, data card recharges and payments on various portals like SnapDeal.

Airtel Money

Airtel Money is a semi-closed wallet that doesn’t permit cash withdrawal or redemption by the

customer. It can be used to do recharges, make money transfers to contacts, to make bill payments and for online shopping. It can be used to book train tickets as well. It allows to make payments without loading money in the wallet first. The app also lets you split bills and expenses with the friends, by entering their phone numbers.

Cash can be loaded into the wallet via any Airtel money outlet. It has also tied up with various other partners like Uber to make the payments.

ICICI Pockets

ICICI Pockets is a VISA powered digital wallet that customers of any bank can use to make online

payments. This wallet uses a virtual VISA card that enables its users to transact on any website or mobile application in India and provides exclusive deals or packages from associated brands. Over the last couple of years, the operations of mRUPEE has enabled customers to pay utility bills, recharge their mobile phones and send money to their friends and family through an e-wallet platform.

Whatever e-wallet you use, it is a need for the time. Now you can pay to your local kinara store, or to your dhobi or milk vendor using your e-wallet instantly. It is easy and safe and directly available in mobile phone. There are many more e-wallets to add to the list, however, digital payments need proper safety. Now, you can forget your wallet at home but not your mobile phone. To help in making India digital, mobile wallets has contributed a great amount of effort.

Sharon Christine
Sharon Christine

An investment in knowledge pays the best interest

Updated on: 16-Jan-2020

225 Views

Kickstart Your Career

Get certified by completing the course

Get Started
Advertisements