Itz Cash Card has partnered with IDBI Bank and MasterCard to bring a general purpose reloadable prepaid card to the Indian market. The goal for the card is to give Indian youth who prefer to pay in cash a means to make electronic payments without giving them a bank account.
The Indian card acceptance market in the physical environment is gaining momentum with the total number of PoS terminals deployed across the country at over 5 lakhs [500,000] and the number of active ATM machines standing at over 85000. A similar kind of dominating figure is being reflected in the Indian population, where the youth population of our country stands at 47 per cent of India’s 1.21 billion population. Most of the purchases done by youth are impulsive and are transacted through cash. Keeping in mind their shopping traits, both offline as well as online, Freedom Card will thus empower them with balancing their monthly budget without having them to open and maintaining a bank account.
While the numbers appear impressive, the Indian market is complex. Many people have very little disposable income, and illiteracy rates are high. These present challenges for card adoption. That said, it may be possible to generate profits by gaining even a small portion of the overall market.