The Telangana Government has launched a digital wallet, named T-Wallet, which doesn’t charge transaction fee from consumers. The government is planning to use the wallet, available in Google Play, for remittances under job guarantee scheme MNREGA and scholarships for students.

Addressing a gathering after launching the wallet, Telangana IT and Industry Minister KT Rama Rao said that the wallet is better than BHIM, the one launched by the Union Government. “T-Wallet is a bi-directional. While consumers use it for public and private transactions, the government can use it to make payments to various beneficiaries,” he said.

“We have over 4,000 MeeSeva (e-governance centres) in the State and those without phones can also have wallets using these centres. We will have a two-factor authentication to ensure security of the wallet,” he said.The two-factor authentication happens with Aadhaar with biometrics or Aadhaar with OTP (one-time password) to Aadhaar-linked phone number.

It also can be used over the web version. One can top up the wallet using credit or debit cards, Internet banking or through cash at Mee Seva centres. It allows a maximum transaction of ₹1 lakh for e-KYC (know your customer) users. For non-KYC users, the limit is set to ₹20,000. The government has picked Transaction Analysts (TA), which secured an RBI licence to run mobile wallets, to run the wallet. Vijaya Bank, a banking partner for the initiative, will provide an escrow account facility for Transaction Analysts. The settlement process and merchant settlement of T-Wallet will also be handled by the bank.The wallet supports, presently available in Android version, supports English, Telugu and Urdu.

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