India’s digital payments space has been a mixed bag. While the sheer volume of payments and numbers are exciting, business models around the same have been unsustainable. When it comes specifically to UPI, there are no players currently reporting any sort of revenue whatsover. Despite that, it makes sense for consumer internet companies to have their own payments interface over UPI, and reduce dependence on external players.
One such attempt is now coming in from Swiggy, with the company announcing the launch of its own wallet named Swiggy Money.
The roll-out is pretty limited though. As of now, the wallet can only be used to credit amounts for the cancelled orders. But going forward, the company plans to make it work as a digital wallet to store money as well as for the transactions on its platform.
This new Swiggy Wallet is powered by ICICI Bank and is a fully RBI compliant Prepaid Payment Instrument (PPI). Thus, users have to complete a minimum KYC (know your customer) by entering government-issued identification information to use the service.
Swiggy Money will also add UPI, credit card, debit card and net banking options to load money. With minimum KYC, a user can transact up to Rs 10,000 while a full KYC allows the user to load up to Rs 1,00,000 at any given time.
While the wallet service is currently available on food orders but will soon be opened up for Swiggy Pop, Swiggy Stores and Swiggy Go. Besides wallet, Swiggy is also expected to foray into the UPI-based payments business that may include peer-to-peer fund transfer.
Since Swiggy does about 50 million orders a month, having an in-house wallet will certainly help the firm in driving scale and engagement. This is the fifth major product from the company after launching Supr, Swiggy Stores, Swiggy Daily and Swiggy Go this year.
