Vijay Shekhar Sharma, head of Paytm, says they'd achieve their 500-million user target by 2018, two years before the earlier aim.
A Nielsen report found that biscuits, salty snacks, toilet soap, shampoo, washing powder and skin creams were reporting a sharp decline in sales due to demonetisation, reports Viveat Susan Pinto from Mumbai.
Now that you have already downloaded mobile wallets and all set to go cashless/digital with your payments to the local grocer, cabbie, maid, etc, here's what you must watch out for, says Tripti Rai.
Bengaluru-based iKaaz Software, a mobile payment solution provider, is launching a new application, MOWA, that works almost like the Apple Pay
The prime minister initiated the discussion on the move, which was announced last month, with the ministers after the meeting of the Union Cabinet ended in New Delhi.
Sleep has been a casualty for Vijay Shekhar Sharma, whose wallet company Paytm has a user base of close to 150 million and is working 20 hours a day.
In the backdrop of the crisis brewing at Paytm Payments Bank, major fintech companies are ramping up their workforce and inducting new faces in their leadership teams, industry sources said on Wednesday. Users will not be able to add funds to their Paytm Payments Bank Wallet after February 29, though they will still be able to use the services and the existing balance in the wallets, according to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) diktat. Industry sources said that competitors to Paytm are investing heavily in offline payments while doubling their salesforce.
Fintech firm MobiKwik on Monday filed a draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) with the markets regulator, Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), for its initial public offering (IPO). According to its DRHP, the company plans to raise Rs 1,900 crore, which includes a fresh issue of Rs 1,500 crore and an offer for sale of Rs 400 crore. The selling shareholders include American Express Travel, Bajaj Finance, Cisco Systems and Sequoia Capital India, besides founder Bipin Preet Singh. MobiKwik is the latest among tech majors wanting to list on stock exchanges. Food delivery start-up Zomato will launch its IPO on Wednesday.
Compared to a 64 per cent penetration in Brazil (130 million users total) and 53 per cent in China (total 733 million users), India has barely 28 per cent penetration. Of the digital reach, almost 80 per cent are from affluent segments in urban areas. How can this change?
If the CBDCs don't offer interest, why will people shift from cash to CBDCs?, asks Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
'We went from zero to about 10 million users in three months. Paytm came out with the wallet play and we came out with the UPI play.'
A small percentage of asset allocation to bitcoin seems like a reasonable gamble, as it could be a major gainer in an uncertain global environment, says Devangshu Datta.
The hoarding of cash accentuated from the very start of 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic started taking hold the world over, and fear of the pandemic prodded people to remain liquid for emergency use.
One reason why volumes have not increased in the retail segment is that users are not aware of merchants who accept digital currency.
Get a new QR code from an alternative provider. PhonePe, Google Pay, Pine Labs, etc are some of the other service providers.
Agriculture, social services, education, defence and so on will be brought into the digital fold and every gram panchayat will be connected to the internet.
The currency in circulation (CIC) declined by Rs 7,600 crore in the Diwali week, making it the first such happening in two decades, a report said on Thursday. This was made possible courtesy of a greater reliance on digital payments by people, the report by economists at SBI said, adding that the Indian economy is undergoing a structural transformation at present. They clarified that the Diwali week in 2009 had also witnessed a marginal Rs 950 crore decline in currency in circulation, but that was purely due to the economic slowdown amid the global financial crisis.
Paytm, the country's leading fintech player which had to shut its payment bank business following regulatory action, is revisiting its business strategy including partnership with lenders. Also, the company's founder and chief executive officer (CEO) Vijay Shekhar Sharma has decided to oversee the day-to-day operations with all the major verticals reporting directly to him now. "The thing on top of everyone's agenda is getting the core businesses back on track," a person in the know said.
"You can download mobile applications provided by banks on your phones and I want to urge political leaders, teachers, youth to give training to people on mobile banking," Modi said.
National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) on Wednesday said there is no charge for the bank account to bank account-based UPI payments or normal UPI payments.
Fintech firm One97 Communications, which owns the Paytm brand, has received support from merchants, and it assured them of continuity of services without any disruption, the company said in a blog on Sunday. The blog post came amid the recent crisis around Paytm Payments Bank Limited (PPBL), an associate company of Paytm, which has been barred by the RBI from accepting deposits or top-ups in customer accounts, wallets, FASTags and other instruments after February 29.
Since payment alternatives such as UPI, e-wallets and USSD - based mobile banking through different platforms are directly or indirectly linked to the user's bank account one needs to be extra careful to keep hackers at bay, explains Adhil Shetty, CEO, BankBazaar.
Developers in India now have expanded access to Google's powerful AI models with the 2 million token context window in Gemini 1.5 Pro and Gemma 2, the next generation of open models.
'The reason is that you may not enter the branch but you want to see it near you as it establishes trust.'
'India has tremendous potential for digital ventures,' says Ratan Tata.
The proposed investment will be made over a period of five years in our India operations, which includes an R&D facility at Pune and another centre at Vadodara.
American technology giant Apple's chief executive Tim Cook on Wednesday met ICICI Bank's top brass at the country's largest private sector lender's corporate headquarters in Mumbai.
With over 80 million Unified Payments Interface (UPI) users, Amazon Pay, the payments business of e-commerce giant Amazon, has been growing at 40-50 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y), said Mahendra Nerurkar, chief executive officer (CEO) and vice-president (V-P), Amazon Pay India. "Leveraging just the micro peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions on UPI is not a business model. "While we have enabled those features, we do not chase monthly active users based on this.
Every customer, on opening a Payments Bank account, will get a cashback of Rs 250 as soon they bring deposits of Rs 25,000 in their bank account. The account will have zero balance requirement and every online transaction (such as IMPS, NEFT, RTGS) will be free of charge.
ICICI Bank says it blocked all UPI transactions made through PhonePe due to security concerns.
The securities regulator's approval for the first US-listed exchange traded funds (ETF) to track bitcoin has given Indian cryptocurrency companies hope that the move would create domestic support for the digital assets. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Thursday approved 11 ETFs for bitcoin, perhaps the most popular virtual currency. It would enable investors to access bitcoin without challenges such as setting up wallets or accounts with crypto exchanges that have previously suffered cyberattacks or implosion.
It's mid-morning and the two-kilometre stretch from Rashbehari Avenue to Gariahat Market is bustling with activity. Dotted with saree shops and hawker stalls that sell everything, from hairpins, hangers and towels to hosiery, mobile phone covers and kurtas, this is one of South Kolkata's busiest shopping areas. And it is beginning to wake up to the Paytm crisis.
The minister also exempted components from taxes to encourage domestic manufacturing of these devices.
Infibeam appointed Kothari as president, strategy, corporate development, international operations, and investor relations.
The Reserve Bank has asked troubled digital wallet firm MobiKwik, which is facing data breach allegations, to get a forensic audit done without any delay. Though the Gurugram-based firm has been claiming that its systems are secure and that there is no basis to the allegations of data breach, a group of hackers on Tuesday said that they accessed personal and financial data of nearly 10 crore MobiKwik customers. On Wednesday, sources in the know of the development told PTI that the RBI has ordered an immediate forensic audit of the company's systems by a certified auditor. When contacted, an RBI spokesperson refused to comment. MobiKwik refused to give a direct answer to a query on whether the RBI has ordered a forensic audit.
A 30-year-old man, who had kidnapped a child and taken the ransom via UPI on his mobile wallet, has been arrested by the Noida police who used his digital footprints to trace him, officials said on Monday.
PhonePe wants to dethrone its Alibaba and SoftBank-backed rival, Paytm, claiming that additional capital that Walmart will bring to the table will help it grow much faster
Dhanteras' buying seemed to have been sparked by the belief that prices would remain firm
'Besides Ayodhya, the BJP lost in nine other constituencies with a Ramayana imprint; it tasted success only in Thrissur.' 'In Rameswaram, K Navaskani of the Indian Union Muslim League won with a 44% voteshare in a 84% Hindu constituency.' 'In the 21 seats in the Ayodhya and Varanasi regions, both crucial to the Hindutva project, the BJP won just 7.' 'It won just 3 out of 12 seats around Modi's constituency,' points out Krishna Prasad.
Earlier last month, for the first time ever, an anonymous hacker was served with a restraining order as a non-fungible token (NFT), reports Shivani Shinde.
