MobiKwik Unveils New Mobile Wallet in India (Oct. 1, 2013)
Indian payment startup MobiKwik is launching what the company is calling the country’s first consumer-focused mobile wallet. The MobiKwik wallet is available as an app for iOS and Android devices, and enables users to make online purchases from about 500 merchants. The wallet can be loaded via bank account transfer or credit card and a cash reload feature is in the works. Up to INR 50,000 (US$800) can be loaded onto the wallet.
MobiKwik’s new wallet comes just a month after the company was granted a payment license by the Reserve Bank of India to issue semi-closed prepaid products. The national bank has been encouraging the development of electronic payment systems in India, where cash remains the dominant form of payment. MobiKwik has for the past two years been operating a closed-loop wallet for bill payment and phone top-up that has amassed more than 2.5 million users and powers more than 75,000 transactions a day, the company said.
To bolster the new wallet, MobiKwik said it will focus on signing up additional merchants to accept payments via the wallet. The company claims that the wallet’s one-step online purchasing process can help increase the completion rate of online purchases, which often are abandoned, especially on mobile devices.
