Uber’s cash-based payment system wasn’t just a trial, if you thought so. Getting more serious on cash-based transactions, Uber today announced introduction of the same in four more Indian cities — Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Pink City Jaipur, and Kochi.
Uber first started testing cash-based transactions in Hyderbad in May this year, which was followed by a similar testing phase in Kenyan Capital Nairobi.
The US based cab hailing app hasn’t had the best of relations with the Indian Government, ever since it step foot in the subcontinent. Uber was immediately barred from using credit card for transactions, largely because it did not comply with RBI’s two step authentication mechanism. It then partnered with PayTM to allow users to pay via its wallet service.
However, Uber did receive a credit card license this month itself, thus allowing users to pay for the cab ride, directly via their credit cards.
As for cash payments, similar to the way service has been in use in Hyderabad and Nairobi, users first have to select cash payments while selecting their ride, to be able to pay the driver via cash. On a personal note though, this is perhaps the only downside to using Uber than Ola (Ola’s service is way too pathetic by the way), as Ola allows the rider to decide during the ride itself, whether he/she wishes to pay via Ola Wallet or via cash.
Uber said while announcing the service as an experiment in Hyderabad to gain a deeper understanding of consumer behavior and usage trends to help develop more robust payment options for the local market. It had then said,
Hyderabad was the only city specifically selected for this experiment because it provides us with the right environment to test a new payment option amongst a sizable and sophisticated rider and driver community.
The move to cash-based transactions is not surprising on Uber’s part, which despite being the world’s most valuable tech startup at $40 Billion (expected to be $50 billion with latest funding) and presence in over 300 cities all around the world, lags far behind Ola (valued at $400 million in latest funding), the leading cab service in India which accounts for about 80% of market share and presence in 110 cities with plans to reach 200 by the end of 2015.
