Transactions By Digital Wallets Up Three Times Between February and April

Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Digital wallets, which allow consumers to pay for purchases through devices such as mobile phones, are becoming popular, if an almost three-fold surge in the number of such transactions recorded between February and April this year is any indication.

About 6.7 crore transactions worth Rs 1,196 crore were recorded through digital wallets in April compared with 2.4 crore payments totalling Rs 876 crore in February, according to Reserve Bank of India data sourced through a Right to Information application. The document also states that the total number of digital wallets as of April 2015 is 101.86 million.

Companies say the rise in transactions can be attributed to an increase in the number of consumers trying out the new payment model, which may be borne out by the fact that the average value of each payment halved to Rs 178 in April from Rs 364 in February.

Digital wallets allow users to make purchases electronically using a device — most often a smartphone — to reduce the burden of carrying cash. Paytm, the consumer brand of Noida-based mobile Internet company One97 Communications, spent almost Rs 100 crore on advertising its electronic wallet services during February-April. “February was the time when the cricket world cup took place and we first started advertising on television. As a result, we attracted new users,” said Amit Lakhotiya, vice-president at Paytm, which also operates an e-commerce platform. “While existing users have become comfortable in making high-value transactions, new users are still experimenting with the product.”

The increase may also have been caused by wallet companies including recharges made on their websites as digital transactions.

Source: The Economic Times (link opens in a new window)

Categories
Technology
Tags
digital payments, telecommunications