Mobile Wallet Service Is Set to Boom: MD, Citrus Payment

BW Online Bureau Oct 06, 2015

Is mobile wallet a sustainable business model (given that discounts, cashback, etc are inseparable part of it)? Discounts and cash backs are given to drive user adoption. It is common to let user try the product at least and then product experience should take over. At the outset, it is not sustainable to provide such incentives on a continued basis. Unit economics have to be played out to sustain. Unfortunately, few players are looking at this business from consumer acquisition perspective for their other businesses. I believe that this business has to provide standalone value to the consumer and product experience should be the number one value proposition. Mobile wallets are set to boom because of two reasons 1) Convenience of doing transaction on apps b) Restricted liability exposure for internet transaction What’s your current subscriber base and number of transactions they make in a month? We process 12 million transactions a month. Our current base is 17 million. Can mobile wallet become truly mainstream? While mobile wallets will be playing an important role in the digital eco-system, it is unlikely that it will replace existing payment methods. There are various restrictions around money transfer, consumer on-boarding and financial limits per account. The biggest roadblock is KYC of wallet accountholders, even if a consumer is transferring money from his existing bank/card account which is already KYC complied. Second, ease of money movement from bank account to wallets are still a big challenge. Please share your strategies for ramping up the merchant count on board? Hyperlocal commerce is the next big trend we are seeing in the Indian context, and we are seeing huge demand from such merchants. We have been focusing on micro payments such as food delivery, groceries and local services, while also pushing acceptance of wallet in retail stores. We want to deliver a smooth experience to consumers, rather than providing the OTP led approach which in our opinion is a very suboptimal approach. What are your top areas for investment moving forward to make your mark in mobile commerce enduring? We will continue to invest in areas of simplifying payments both offline and in-apps, managing money at household level. a) Solving offline payments b) Make mobile payment experience truly zero-click c) Drive increased benefits to consumers and merchants Are you working to innovate on technology front to make mobile wallet more permeating to users’ devices? We are working on technologies wherein your existing wallet could be replaced totally with the digital wallet. We don’t like wherein users block a portion of their money. We want to provide convenient experience even when a user is using his existing payment instrument.