‘MoboMoney’, India’s first contact-less digital payment ecosystem launched

December 23, 2015: Tech Mahindra Ltd. a specialist in digital transformation, consulting and business re-engineering, announced the launch of India’s first contactless digital payment ecosystem, branded MoboMoney.

MoboMoney is a prepaid wallet issued in the form of an NFC (Near-Field Communication) Contactless Tag. It can be used to ‘Tap n Pay’ on a network of NFC enabled Merchant POS, thus allowing customers without an NFC-enabled phone to enjoy the simple tap and pay experience to purchase goods. Further, with the increasing penetration of NFC enabled Mobile Devices, MoboMoney Mobile Wallet application will soon be available to use the embedded NFC capability of mobile devices along with other cutting edge technologies that would simplify and enhance the customers’ payment experience.

India’s first commercial NFC ecosystem rollout, MoboMoney allows consumers to load their wallet by paying cash at its 1000+ retail network, helping convert cash into e-cash. The money loaded into the customers’ digital wallets can then be used to Tap n pay for over the counter payments, recharges, make bill payments, as well as pay online – converting what were earlier payments done in cash, into digital payments. If the user wishes, he / she can link a bank account to the MoboMoney wallet and can retrieve the unspent amount from the wallet into the linked bank account.

Mr. Jagdish Mitra, Chief Strategy & Marketing Officer, Head of Growth Factories, Tech Mahindra Ltd., said, “Enabling Digital Payments in a country largely driven by cash presents a huge socio–economic opportunity to bring a positive change in the country’s financial system. To this end, Tech Mahindra leverages its strong technology background and global experience in executing Digital Payment solutions. We have embarked on a journey to enable 1 million points of acceptance for MoboMoney over the next five years.”

Mr. Vivek Chandok, Head – Consumer Businesses, Tech Mahindra Ltd. said, “In our endeavor towards a less-cash environment, we are taking the lead to setup an ecosystem, wherein digital payments can be accepted irrespective of form factors or service providers in an inter-operable and device-agnostic manner. The simplicity is in the Tap and Pay experience as against remembering complex syntax or having any knowledge of using the Internet or mobile application. It works irrespective whether it’s a smart phone or a feature phone.”

The Opportunity

MoboMoney enables financial inclusion through the issuance of Digital wallets at the Merchant POS by providing basic KYC details. The payments are secured by NFC tags (which cannot be cloned) and end-to-end transaction security. Consumers can additionally secure their transactions by the use of pin along with the flexibility to define the transaction limit below which pin is not required. Considering that large chunks of cash transactions are low value payments, elimination of pin vs two-factor authentication required for credit / debit cards, makes the transaction faster at the merchant point. The option of pin-less transactions coupled with the simplicity of NFC enabled Tap n Pay user experience and the significantly reduced transaction time compared to traditional card payments, has helped both consumers & merchants realize the benefits of Digital Payments. With MoboMoney, merchants can accept payments for as low as Re. 1, eliminating the problem of change management.

Tech Mahindra’s positioning

The company’s positioning is different compared to others whose consumers are able to top-up their wallet mainly through their bank account or through debit or credit cards, while Tech Mahindra continues to focus on converting cash to digital money. Tech Mahindra is investing to expand the contactless digital payment ecosystem, making it the only service provider in the digital wallet space to build a Digital Payments infrastructure. The vision is to enable all forms of payment instruments including open-loop Bank issued payment cards. This strategy will narrow the digital divide and allow the company to make the best of socio-economic opportunities linked to a ‘cash-less’ ecosystem. Target market would include the merchant ecosystem comprising kirana and grocery stores, chemists, restaurants, school- and college-canteens and any store that currently accepts cash for payment.

Tech Mahindra is looking at One Million MoboMoney Smart Payment Points that will target not only payment transactions but also act as the digital concierge to deliver multiple digital services such as hyper-commerce, utility bills, ticketing, remittances, banking cash in-cash out services etc. over a mobile/tablet/payment device. This will also lay the foundation to our Payments Bank strategy.

MoboMoney is a well-researched product in sync with the diversity of the country and current mass-market need. Usage of cash is a huge drain on the Indian economy due to sheer cost of cash management logistics & risk associated with it. Key reasons for high level of cash spending have been lack of Digital payment Eco-systems forcing people to withdraw cash.