Jasper infotech, the parent company behind one of India’s largest e-commerce platforms – Snapdeal and online recharge portal – FreeCharge, has received in-principle approval from Reserve Bank of India for a wallet service, Snapdeal CSO Govind Rajan told ET.
As per Govind Rajan, Chief Strategy Officer of Snapeal, they are the only e-commerce company in the country that has an in-principle approval from RBI. Although, Paytm had received similar wallet license from RBI in August 2013 and has also received a payment bank license recently, but PayTM pivoted to an e-commerce model after it started off as a recharging platform.
The company is now planning to open up the wallet to third party merchants to become India’s “most-used” wallet over the next 6 months. It is also tying-up with several third party merchants for this.
Taking note of the emerging payment solution through wallet, Snapdeal and FreeCharge also announced the launch of their new wallet service yesterday, which will now allow users to make transactions of both the platforms. For this, the company has partnered with Yes Bank and plans to go independent later.
Govind Rajan, Chief Strategy Office of Snapdeal, said,
Our partnership with Yes Bank is pretty deep and you know what happens when you partner with a bank is you get access to the expertise. It’s not just putting money in an escrow account but you get access to many other banking products, which is also something that consumers would want over a period of time.
Currently, we are going with Yes Bank, we feel confident about this partnership and if things need to evolve, then we will take that call when we have to. There is no immediate plan as of now.
Having served as Chief Executive Officer of Airtel Money for over a year, Govind Rajan has significant experience in digital payments and mobile wallets. Snapdeal recently hired Anand Chandrasekaran as Chief Product Officer, who also involved in product conceptualization of Airel Money.
Last month, Flipkart bought majority stake of payments services start-up FX Mart Pvt. Ltd, which holds a prepaid wallet licence, to add a payment service on its platform and on Myntra. Ola had also announced that its digital wallet Ola Money, which is in association with ZipCash Card Services Pvt. Ltd., will be available on other e-commerce platforms.
Paytm is currently the market leader in digital payments. It’s founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma became one of the 11 recipients of in-principle approval for a payment bank licence issued by RBI, which will allow to provide basic savings, deposits, payment and remittance services to shoppers, significantly increasing the utility value of digital wallet.
