5 myths about mobile wallets

false

Physical wallets have given way to digital wallets, which are being used for ticket booking, bill payments, online recharges and retail purchases.

What is a Digital Wallet?

Mobile applications that store your payment information (Credit card and debit card details).

Advantage- no need to give your confidential bank account or credit card details at every purchase anymore.
Examples- Paytm, Mobikwik, and Freecharge and other bank wallet apps.

Myths Related To The Use Of Digital Wallets-

1) No need to fill any KYC norms.

2) No cash return, once money loaded

Myth-Funds locked up cannot be reimbursed in case of returned goods.

Could be true for closed wallets. But open wallets have tie ups with banks. These open wallets have cash out services too.
Closed wallets are exclusive or prepaid wallet which can be used at a particular outlet of the service provider.
Examples of closed wallets-Myntra, Flipkart, Airtel Money or Idea Money.

3) Fear of security issues and leak of confidential data

Heavy investments being made in security technologies.

Examples-

-Companies working on facial recognition technologies to reduce fraud.

-Many have introduced card and device checks to detect fraud.

-Some capture the IP address and device location for fraud detection.

4) Less usable because of limited listed merchants linked

Rapid expansion plans. Examples-

-Companies like Paytm have over 1 lakh merchants listed with them.

-Mobikwik added 10,000 offline merchants, including neighborhood restaurants, shops, bookstores etc.

-Some tying up with neighborhood kirana stores, flower shops, clothing stores.

5) Earning interest from my money lying in the wallet account

Truth-RBI has issued complete set of rules for payments through mobile wallet.

For example,

A customer registers with Paytm Paytm creates an escrow account Preloaded amount deposited in this account.

After payment is made Fund credited to Paytm account.

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