The digital payments market in India is growing at an unimaginable speed. Global tech firms including Facebook, Google are fighting to win Indian consumers.
Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway acquiring a stake in Paytm has reassured India’s position in the global digital payments market. Indian consumers are increasingly embracing digital wallets for everything, right from grocery shopping to even paying for their street food. The digital payments market in the country is being ruled by Paytm predominantly, followed by WhatsApp Pay, Google Pay, and Reliance’s Jio Money.
Several other big players are also expanding into India’s digital payments market. Digital payments received an impetus with the implementation of demonetisation and was well received by India's internet savvy population.
According to Credit Suisse Group’s report, the Indian digital payments market will hit a milestone of Rs 70 lakh crore by 2023. The current digital payments market is worth Rs 14 lakh crore in India and the country's economy has come a long way to record 30% of all Indian transactions being digital.
Under the leadership of Modi government, foreign firms have taken strong steps to expand their financial services in India. Most of the transactions are being made through BHIM, WhatsApp Payment and Paytm. Here are India’s top payment players and why you should use them.
The Facebook-owned company started testing its payment service with one million Indians in February this year. The penetration of WhatsApp messaging service helped in the adoption of WhatsApp’s payment vertical. The company did not offer any incentives to acquire customers in India.
The problem with WhatsApp payments is that it is still stuck in beta phase. The countrywide launch has been impacted by regulatory issues like the storage of user data. The Indian government is also pursuing WhatsApp for spreading misinformation and trolls through its messaging platform.
Google’s service crossed 50 million downloads in the last week. The search engine firm rebranded ‘Google Tez’ to ‘Google Pay’ on Tuesday. The company is swiftly adding users and increasing a total number of transactions using Unified Payments Interface (UPI). Google is confident about leveraging its market share to push the service in India
Even though Google is offering ridiculous incentives for early adopters, the service struggled to make its way in the Indian market. The platform has integrated a chat feature to boost the adoption.
The payment service owned by Flipkart has found a new backer when Walmart acquired a majority stake in Flipkart. PhonePe is already gaining from Walmart’s financial heft. The US-based retailer has infused about $66 million to push the payment service. The service faces stiff competition from the rival Amazon, which is steadily pumping capital in its own wallet, Amazon Pay.
India’s pioneer in digital wallet service is backed by China’s Alibaba as well as Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway. The payments service has 150 million Indian users. The service got a boost from India’s demonetization drive in 2016. The payments firm has built a strong network of merchants and outlets with a robust system of cash back and discounts.
The service faces a number of regulatory issues. The government has made it mandatory for Paytm to adhere to KYC norms. Since the platform is India’s one of the first payments bank, it has made users go through a multi-step enrollment process. The government has recently barred Paytm from enlisting new users that don’t meet the compliance procedures.