Online shopping and transactions have increased immensely in the past couple of years and it has become possible due to the ease people see in using online platforms for as a paying option.
The mobile wallet industry got a boom after demonetisation as apps like Paytm became more important and daily use services. And now, things are changing rapidly in the country’s payments space with global technology giants like Google Pay and Amazon Pay trying to win consumers’ attention.
One thing that these companies are quickly working on is making UPI experience faster and safe. Many believe that mobile wallets, which saw exponential growth in the past few years, may soon lose the popularity.
The rise in UPI transactions has been very large as compared to wallet transactions over the past year.
Features of UPI
- With UPI, there are much more features than wallets but are all meant for people with a bank account.
- Unlike wallets, there isn’t a need to load up money first in UPI-based apps. One can transact using a simple identifier that looks like an email address.
- Payments can be scheduled, and UPI can now be linked to overdraft accounts.
Why do people prefer Mobile Wallets?
- Wallets gained popularity due to discounts and cashbacks. That trick still remains as many companies are using this to build loyalty programmes.
- If you look at online travel platforms, most of them offer cashback in their wallets on booking. A portion of this can be used for future transactions.
- App-based taxi services also use wallets for cashbacks to make customers spend more.
- Wallets have offered support for many regional languages whereas UPI supports Hindi and English only till date.
Many wallet companies have added the UPI interface for peer-to-peer money transfer. Wallets have grown despite RBI making it mandatory for them to carry out full KYC compliance.
