“Go Cashless” is the new term that is often echoed from the Indian Economy corridors these days, specially after Prime Minister Narendra Modi took the bold measure of demonetisation to bring unaccounted cash within the banking system.
With this move to curb use of cash money and encourage the common man to use mobile transactions, many e-wallet companies in the country are trying to bank on this opportunity. While several registered banks within the country have come with their own mobile applications for cashless payments, many 3rd party players have surfaced strongly with attractive offers.
Today, we will discuss some of the most used e-wallet Apps that are used for cashless transactions in India. While, using few of the applications you might be asked to submit your KYC documents to make larger amount of cashless payments using their wallet structure.
Table of Contents
PayTM
Well, PayTM certainly needs no introduction as you will find this easy-to-use and friendly app with majority of the smartphone users in the country. An early player in this segment, PayTM has managed to get a lot of customer attention. The app is a one-stop solution for all your needs. You can pay your mobile bills, electricity bills, travel bills of hotels and flights, bills of train tickets with an IRCTC integration and lot more. You just name the service and you have it. Apart from this, the app also facilitates you to perform shopping of grocery items, to daily utility items to clothing and all other stuff.
Moreover, the app offers its users several rewards in the form of cash-backs straight in their PayTM wallet. The received cash-back can be used to make payments across any purchase you make through the app. Not only this, the app also facilitates to send money from the PayTM wallet to your loved and dear ones.
At PayTM, you can prefer to make the payments through several options like debit/credit cards, net-banking, etc. However, if you don’t wish to enter your banking details every time at the checkout, you can load some prefix amount straight in your PayTM wallet and easily make the necessary payments.
Download PayTM : iOS, Android and Windows Phone
FreeCharge
A staunch competitor to PayTM, FreeCharge is another player in this segment of cashless payments. With its huge network of associated merchants across the country, FreeCharge payments are accepted across several services like petrol bills, bus travel bills, mobile payments, electricity payments, and much more.
There are several attractive offers released by the company in terms of cash-backs to their own wallet. Moreover, new and first-time customers get additional benefits upon joining FreeCharge. You can load sufficient money to the FreeCharge wallet and make quick payments upon purchase over its offered services. Just like PayTM, you can also send the money to your contacts, friends and other family members.
The company was acquired by e-commerce giant Snapdeal last year in April 2015.
Download FreeCharge: iOS, Android and Windows Phone
Mobikwik
Mobikwik was the first player in the mobile recharge segment. As on date, the app hosts services to more that 25 million active users with a merchant network of more then 50k retailers.
You can load money to your Mobikwik e-wallet directly by using the debit/credit cards and net-banking. Apart from this, you can perform several other tasks like mobile payments, electricity payments, payments at several associated shopping outlets and restaurants, and much more!
The app has attractive offers to its customers in the form of cash-backs. You can load up to 10k INR in your Mobikwik account. Once you submit the KYC documents, the limit increases to 1lac per month.
State Bank Buddy
This is an official app made by India’s biggest PSU bank SBI. Irrespective of whether you are an account holder of SBI or not, you can still use this app. This app supports 13 different languages. The basic features of the app include sending money and setting of reminder for clearing up the dues. Users can also make instant bill payments for available services by linking the app with their debit/credit cards.
Additionally, you can use this app for making payments for other services like paying for movie tickets, hotel bills, flights bills, etc. Also, users can send money to other people having their accounts in different banks. To begin with, register you mobile number and bank account with the application.
Unified Payment Gateway (UPI)
This is an initiative taken by the Govt. of India in order to give a boost to digital payments. Once you register to this system, your digital wallet will be created from where you can easily make a payment to vegetable vendors and supermarkets.
While registering for the first time you need to add your bank account details and mobile number. This way your virtual ID will get created. You won’t need any debit/credit cards with UPI app. This means that your digital wallet will directly fetch the necessary amount from your registered bank account.
While making any payments to the concerned merchant, ask whether his/her system supports UPI payments. If yes, you just need to share your virtual identity to the cashier who in turn will generate a UPI receipt for you. You just need to then approve this receipt using your mobile number. To understand this, take a look at the below image.
With so many options to pay online, there’s absolutely no need to carry physical cash, and more on that … you’ll end up saving huge using the e-money as many of these players offers cashbacks on every transaction you do!
