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As mobile app payments grow in India, with apps like Paytm, MobiKwik, PayUMoney, the digital wallet is expanding in a big way.
By Shruti Dhapola
'Use X digital wallet and get 10 per cent cashback,' is a sentence we have become familiar with in our smartphone-dependent lives. In India, the options are limitless when it comes to choosing a digital wallet - there is Paytm, the biggest player in the market claiming 100 million users, followed by rivals MobiKwik and FreeCharge and newcomers like PayUMoney and Oxigen.
But the digital wallet is morphing beyond recharges or pay for everything from online food delivery to cab rides and even booking a new home. KYC is the next buzzword for the big players like Paytm and MobiKwik where they want to verify customer details like address, identity to increase the digital wallet limit to Rs 1 lakh per month. Currently, RBI rules limit digital wallets to Rs 10,000 without a KYC.
"With a full KYC, we can extend this Rs 10,000 limit to Rs 1 lakh. What we have seen is that for digital wallets, the use case is expanding beyond just paying bills. We don't want any limits on how a digital wallet should be used in the future and getting the KYC done is the first step in this," says Nitin Misra, VP Products at Paytm.
The app plans to go big with its KYC project and will partner with an entity to create walk-in eKYC centres where customers can just come in, do the digital verification and leave. At present, Paytm has select centres where customers can do the KYC, but Paytm wants to make this...