In early 2017 when Truecaller launched Truecaller Pay, a UPI-based transaction feature, it became immediately clear that the caller identification company has big plans to penetrate the flourishing mobile payment industry. Today, the company has solidified its commitment by acquiring Chillr – India’s first muti-bank payment app launched in 2014.
The company has also announced the launch of Truecaller Pay 2.0 after acquiring Chillr. The latest version of the app offers more features and better integration with banks to bring the banking and payment features to the forefront of its app.
“Since launching Truecaller Pay in 2017, we’ve seen an increasing number of use cases to make the lives of our users in India easier. By acquiring Chillr, we are reaffirming our commitment to mobile payments and strengthening our plans to increase its adoption amongst our user base, says Nami Zarringhalam, Co-founder & Chief Strategy Officer of Truecaller.
Truecaller also revealed that the team is working on many other features related to financial services which would be the part of Truecaller Pay. In the new months services like Credit and other financial services would be made available to 150 million Truecaller app users in India.
The management team of Chillr would join Truecaller to strengthen core competencies in mobile payment space. The co-founder of Chillr, Sony Joy, would be joining Truecaller as Vice President of Trucaller Pay.
Our roadmap on payments and financial services which when combined with the scale and resources of Truecaller, can create amazing experiences and solve genuine problems at an accelerated pace.” says Sony Joy, Co-founder, Chillr.
Mobile Payments in India On Rising
The acquisition of Chillr is being seen as a move by Trucealler to increase its share of flourishing mobile payments industry in India. The number of digital transactions in India is estimated to reach $1 trillion by 2023, and the unprecedented growth would be driven by mobile. In FY2018, mobile is estimated to account for just 2.5% of total digital payments amounting $200 billion.
Sensing the size of the opportunity many major players, including WhatsApp, Reliance Jio and Paytm, have set their eyes on the lions share of the market. Besides, in a bid to stay competitive with new-age competitors, all the banks in India have started employing mobile-first strategy by introducing their own mobile payment apps.
