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On the first anniversary of demonetisation, IDFC Bank has entered into a “strategic alliance” with mobile wallet major MobiKwik to launch a co-branded virtual Visa prepaid card for customers of MobiKwik.
“It’s a win-win. This tie-up puts our brand in the hands of very large customers that MobiKwik brings. Our brand visibility goes up. At the same time, it allows them to expand the buying power of MobiKwik customers as people will be able to use at more locations”, Avtar Monga, Executive Director, IDFC Bank told BusinessLine here.
Monga made it clear that one need not be a customer of IDFC Bank to use the co-branded pre-paid card.
At the last count, MobiKwik had a user base of 65 million. In the last one year, MobiKwik’s reach has increased from 1 lakh to 20 lakh merchants.
Upasana Taku, Co-Founder, MobiKwik, said that MobiKwik was through this tie-up expanding the reach in terms of merchant network so that its users are not limited to using wallets only on MobiKwik merchants but could pay anywhere where Visa is accepted.
“We are basically pushing our users to do many more transactions as they are able to use it in many more places, outside of the MobiKwik network as well. The expectation is average spend per user will go up”, she said.
Taku said that the reason MobiKwik chose IDFC Bank was that “digital” was key part of their strategy and banking as a platform was an important part of their strategic growth initiative.
“This is also one of the largest deployments of new card issuance in India both for Visa and any bank in India. This is a big win for all the partners in the association”, she said.
The Visa virtual pre-paid card facility is already live by “invitation” and is expected to open to all MobiKwik users (both Android and iOS) next week.
“This pre-paid card will now allow MobiKwik users to shop from Amazon or Flipkart where currently MobiKwik wallet use is not allowed. This Visa pre-paid card is replica of the wallet and can be used anywhere”, she said.
Taku also said this tie-up was a key part of MobiKwik’s strategy to activate transactions and increase volumes.
The novelty here is that a user need not go through the five step process to generate a card, which was the case in previous efforts of other players in the payment industry.
Within the MobiKwik App, a user will be able to generate a Visa pre-paid card. You can not only be able to pay where the MobiKwik wallet is accepted, but also all the locations where Visa cards are accepted.
“The ubiquity in terms of acceptance will go up further through this tie-up. There is only so much we can do in terms of signing up merchants directly”, Taku said.
srivats.kr@thehindu.co.in
Correction
This article was amended on November 9, 2017. An earlier version misspelt Avtar Monga's name.
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