NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

ICICI Bank Ltd on Tuesday launched Pockets, a mobile payments wallet for Android phones, which can be topped up with money from any bank account for making phone-based payments.

The entry into mobile wallets could help ICICI Bank, India’s largest private sector bank by assets and branches, get ahead of expected competition from the soon to be launched payment banks in India.

The e-wallet app can be set up with basic personal details like name, mobile number and email ID and funded by any bank account. There is no know your customer (KYC) documentation required if the transactions per month are below Rs.10,000, the bank said.

Chanda Kochhar, managing director and chief executive, ICICI Bank, did not deny this new offering was in anticipation of likely competition from payment banks. “The payment e-wallet allows everything that a payment bank can do. With this offering, we think that we are already offering the experience of a payment bank,” she said.

Forty-one firms including companies like Bharti Enterprises Ltd, Vodafone Plc and Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) have applied for a payment bank licence when the deadline was extended earlier this month.

These banks will provide savings, deposits, payments and remittance services to people who do not have a bank account, including millions of migrant workers. They will not be allowed to lend.