We have had a linger discussion over Google Wallet, which has almost accomplished one year of its journey. Google seems bullish about its Wallet service this time, and obviously, it has become a big challenge for PayPal. At present, number of Google and PayPal’s contenders are available in the market including American Express, Discover, Master Card and Visa. Google has currently contacts with 25 national retailers and it has also 140,000 worldwide locations. Undoubtedly, these players are now focusing on emerging markets like India, China and Brazil.
As compare to other developed countries, India is nascent in mobile wallet service. In India, a mobile payment service provider— MY Mobile Payments—has recently announced the full-fledged launch of its mobile wallet service–Money-on-Mobile–, which facilitates mobile subscribers to pay through their mobile devices for services and products across the country.
MD of Money-on-Mobile, Shashank Joshi, said, “In a country like India where mobile phones are more widespread than the financial systems, mobile payment is the next big alternative payment method. MOM does all paperless transactions and it is in line with RBI’s vision of making 70 per cent of the financial transactions paperless by end of 2012.”
The service will be focused on the non-banking market, where no other alternative mode of payments are available except paying by the cash. Indeed, a significant number of population of the country is deprived from the formal banking services and for them, the services would be an additional support.
However, MOM was introduced in India somewhat earlier in 2010, even before an inducement of Google wallet service. Last year, MOM got permission from Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to offer semi-closed mobile wallet service for the mobile subscribers across the country.
The company has also claimed to have contacts with 82,000 retailers and expected to have presence in 300 cities across the country. The company has estimated to meet 0.5 million subscribers and has targeted to reach Rs 2 crore transactions per day. At present, the company has 150 employees and it’s looking for 0.2 million retail touch points by the end of this year.
MOM allows users to start its service by loading their mobile Phone with cash of various denominations–starting from just Rs 20. Once after loading the cash, they can use this money in various purposes such as to top-up any pre-paid mobile, DTH recharge, paying utility bills (like electricity and gas), post paid mobile bills payment, travelling tickets (for bus, airlines), movie tickets and more.
Indeed, Money-on-Mobile is an incredible afford—facilitates users to more rely on non-banking way of transactions. However, Airtel is also trying to launch its open wallet services across the country. At present, Airtel is providing a prepaid payment system, here the main demerit is that users can’t withdraw cash, so the telecom giant is trying to tie-up with number of banks in order to provide Open Wallet service.
