Digital Wallets

[Sushubh]

Paytm, MobiKwik, Amazon crowd out India's smaller e-wallets — Quartz India

 

[amish]

I thought Paytm was dying too. Havent used it ever since they kept asking for KYC and payment bank thing.

Ofcourse, Alibaba wont let it die, it will probably make its own payment division for India

 

[Sushubh]

yeah. though ma is retiring so not sure what's going on at alibaba. but i am guessing Vijay Shekhar Sharma would be kicked out of Paytm eventually once they come in for the kill. there is no way paytm is making any money and they do not even have any business plan that could eventually make money!

 

[amish]

Bansal and Vijay Sharma are smart.

People think that they were (will be) kicked out --- but they knew / know that anyway.

They already sold their share in company and made huge profits.

Its probably other investors who will lose lots of money in loss making business.

 

[Sushubh]

ugh. it's not about money. these people are so used to being in the headlines and having power in their hands... once they are out, they still want to get back. which is why they do not just retire on some island. but start investing in companies hoping to find the next big thing. i mean just look at Sabeer Bhatia... he made it big. but kept trying to get back in and in. not sure what he is doing these days.

sachin bansal is investing in ola. but i can safely say that he would want to get back into the game and should launch something of his own in the coming years. these guys are barely in their 30s!

 

[Sai]

At the end of the day only the biggies will survive. Paytm will eventually pivot into a tech first full fledged bank (with rest of the retail section going to Alibaba) as payments is the only thing Paytm does with some decency, Freecharge is already merged into Axis Bank. Amazon Pay will continue to power transactions on Amazon and other partner sites. It will survive due to the sheer volume and popularity of Amazon.

Mobiqwik will be acquired by one or other bigger fool. Phone Pe will merge into Walmart Pay when they eventually start hypermarkets here in India. Google Pay will become dominant player, again due to the sheer volume of Android devices. Few mid-size players will be eaten by banks and rest will dissolve. Just a speculation.

 

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[Sushubh]

i do not see much potential in Google Pay as long as it remains a upi only app. it needs to bring nfc powered card payments to be of any use.

Amazon pay is probably going to be the surprise here. they are already testing qr codes for retail payments. scan is a prominent feature on the app homepage. based on recent interviews with their indian head... they have managed to get a lot of people to start using Amazon Pay to shop from their store (and pay bills and pay on third party websites). they could eventually turn out to be the biggest challenger to Paytm in the digital payments market.

 

[dextermorgan]

Bansal and Vijay Sharma are smart.

People think that they were (will be) kicked out --- but they knew / know that anyway.

They already sold their share in company and made huge profits.

Its probably other investors who will lose lots of money in loss making business.

Vijay sharma still owns 16% of Paytm. so he still has stake in its well being. bansals, iirc, cashed out

 

[dextermorgan]

mobikwik is surprise addition. I dont know a single person who uses that god awful wallet with its shitty super cash. they actually lost my 500rs two years back and I still havent forgiven them for it

 

[Sushubh]

my account is blocked on mobikwik. and my twitter account is also blocked from their own handles. win.

 

[amish]

Google Pay will become dominant player, again due to the sheer volume of Android devices.

I am yet to see a single Android user using Google Pay (or Tez). So I would assume its share is still negligible.

 

[Sushubh]

that is the thing. Google Pay uses upi. so there is little incentive for anyone already using Paytm or PhonePe to use google pay for upi payments. apart from the scratch coupons of course. unless they bring in the proper nfc based card payment support... they can only retain customers by offering them cashback on transactions.

 

[Sushubh]

PhonePe at least is using a qr code that support its own wallet as well. so there is incentive in using phonepe at outlets which are accepting payments through phonepe. you don't have to pay through your bank account (always a risky thing). you can pay using your wallet balance which is what i have been doing for months. after facing a hung transaction at mother dairy on paying through bank account.

Google Pay does not have this.

 

[dextermorgan]

that is the thing. Google Pay uses upi. so there is little incentive for anyone already using Paytm or PhonePe to use google pay for upi payments. apart from the scratch coupons of course. unless they bring in the proper nfc based card payment support... they can only retain customers by offering them cashback on transactions.

nut how many nfc equipped phones are there tho? If google ties up with xiaomi and make them include nfc chip, it would be an instant hit. samsung ofcourse would decline google nfc deal since they have their own samsung pay service

 

[Sushubh]

hopefully more than the number of phones with mst 😀

since google cannot use mst... nfc is the only alternative option available. and of course, upi is always there just like the downgraded samsung pay experience on their budget and mid-range devices.

it's a shame that samsung does not bundle mst on all their devices. such a useful tech. wasted with a shithole of a company.