One of India’s leading financial institutions has announced a new service that will allow consumers to send money to each other through WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, email and phone contact lists. Axis Bank which has partnered with Singapore-based social payments vendor Fastacash will see the bank’s Ping Pay application run on the National Payments Corporation of India’s Immediate Payments Service (IMPS).
According to Axis Bank, customers can download the application and sign up for the service using their registered mobile numbers and link their online banking credentials or payments card to their mobile phone. Once confirmed, customers can send up to 50,000 ($785) rupees per day to any bank account holder through WhatsApp or other popular social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook.
Commenting on the new service, Vince Tallent, CEO of Fastacash said,
“India is one of the fastest growing social and messaging markets, with most of these services being accessed from mobile devices. The Indian consumer is looking for new and innovative ways to interact with payments and this is evident from the growth in the number of mobile wallet services being made available in India.”
With India’s IMPS service serving as the rails, there should be nothing stopping Axis Bank and other financial institutions in India from benefiting from the consumer transition to mobile banking and payments. While the social networking element is a nice added twist the real benefits of this service will be to displace cash in a cash heavy market and improve the adoption and use of other forms of electronic payments.
Overview by Tristan Hugo-Webb, Associate Director, Global Payments Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group
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