Mobile wallet companies laud PM's decision, expect spike in digital payments

While the common man is in a state of shock following Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s revolutionary move to demonetize Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes in his fight against black money, mobile wallet companies including Paytm, Mobikwik, Freecharge have lauded the move and foresee this as a big boost to their business opportunities.
Read: India Inc. welcomes move to demonetize Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes
President of Confederation of Indian Industry, Naushad Forbes, said that the Prime Minister’s epochal move to stamp out black money means a definitive and impactful end to the parallel economy and to promote wider use of cashless transactions.
Speaking on the Government’s move, CEO of MobiKwik, Bipin Preet Singh said,”This is the biggest surgical strike on the menace of cash ever heard of anywhere in the world. Within a 50-day period a billion Indians will change their payments behaviour – we will move from cash only to a cash-free economy. This a strong step taken by the Modi Government and will benefit the growth of digital payments and digital banking in India. We are excited to be a part of this historic moment.”
“India users do a trillion US dollars worth of payments annually of which more than 90 per cent are in cash. We at MobiKwik were trending to process US$1 billion of payments in 2017. With this policy change, we expect a 10X impact – we expect to easily hit US$10 billion in payments volume by 2017,” he added.
Read: Boom time for consumers as retailers, mobile wallets tie up
Co-Founder, CashKaro.com, a cashback & coupons site, Rohan Bhargava said that it will lead to an increase in wallets usability. “The move will definitely give a boost to digital payments and will encourage people to shop more online. From the retailer’s point, cash on delivery (CoD) options will see a fall which in turn will lead customers to place more orders through cards and net-banking. Wallets like Paytm, Jio Money will see an increase of usability,” he said.
A virtual wallet or a mobile wallet serves as a place to hold money online. One can make payments using the money stored in the wallet instead of using a credit card, debit card or net banking, which means that a bank account doesn’t need to be accessed. Once the money is in a wallet, one can use it to make payments for hosts of services. Mobile wallets allow users to instantly send money, pay utility bills, hail a cab, recharge mobiles, book movie tickets, and pay for offline shopping / purchases too.
Freecharge, the Snapdeal-owned digital payments platform, echoes Mobikwik’s thoughts.
“The announcement will have significant long-term benefits for the economy. With this, the quantum of India’s economy moving through the digital pipes will witness massive growth,” Co-founder & CEO Snapdeal, Kunal Bahl said.
Behl even took to twitter and noted that it would significantly bring down the usage of cash on delivery (CoD) as a preferred e-commerce payment option.
He tweeted, “Cash on delivery to be a thing of the past very soon. Expect massive adoption of digital payment systems like @FreeCharge in place of cash!.”

Just like Freecharge, mobile wallet and payment company Paytm was quick to come up with a hashtag (#) Paytm Karo to support the Government’s decision.

Founder & CEO, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Paytm welcomed the move with a series of tweets: