Mobile wallet is a service which aims at increasing convenience when it comes to online payments and money transfer. This article helps in understanding various pros and cons of mobile wallet.

Mobile wallet also called as m wallet or e wallet services are means to make digital payments from your smart phones. Instead of paying with cash, cheque, or credit cards, a consumer can use a mobile phone to pay for a wide range of services and goods. It can also be used to transfer money to others.

Like internet banking and plastic money it gives all the flexibility to transact 24*7. One can make purchases online, make utility payments, transfer funds. Similarly it helps to reduce the need to carry “real” money, which has the disadvantage of theft or loss.

Which brings us to the main question WHY MOBILE WALLET? If all the advantages are already provided by other banking services what is the need for more additional payment mode. Here are a few advantages that can motivate one to start using mobile wallets.

Used as a one stop shop to do all the financial transactions from one interphase.

• Providing excellent technology and ease of use. Most of the mobile wallets service providers have worked hard to make banking an easy experience. (one can recharge any mobile from any service provider within 7 seconds, claims Paytm)
• Huge discount coupons and vouchers are provided to attract customers. (Number of mobile wallet users have surpassed the number of credit cards issued in India)
• More secured and faster as you don’t need to feed your 16 digits card number every time you transact. Also no need to share bank details to pay and receive payments.
• It is completely free. (some service providers have charges for utility payments, but can be avoided on some terms and conditions)
• You can load your wallet by paying hard cash, apart from net banking or credit cards. No KYC or PAN is required to store or transact up to Rs 10000.
• Can be used for micro payments like payment of cab services. (Uber has partnered with Paytm as a compulsory mode of payment in India)
• You can issue a mobile wallet for your child to keep a track of their expenses while allowing them the freedom to spend.

Mobile wallets is a growing market and more and more players are entering the space. There are 2 major kinds of service providers. One is banking entity where the services are provided by the bank themselves for e.g.  Pockets by ICICI, Ping pay by Axis, Payzapp by HDFC. Others are non banking entities Paytm, Ypay-Cash, Oxigen and ITZCash are the prominent players. The only difference between these are that in non banking entities even after KYC you cannot store more than 1 lakh Rupees.

To summarise, it makes great sense to register and start using one of these ewallet services. You can register for free and even in services provided by banking entities you can use the same even if you are not banking with them. Paytm is the market leader in this space with over 10 million downloads on play store.

Image source DNA.