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Mobikwik aims to be India's top mobile wallet

The startup provides Indians a way to recharge mobiles and pay bills across various platforms. It claims to have the country's largest number of active digital wallet users.
Written by Srinivas Kulkarni, Contributor

One of the pertinent problems most payment solutions face is the lack of trust and the hassle of successful transactions especially when security is concerned. And with an increasing rise in mobile usage traction, certainly the demand for paying online via mobile has increased.

mobikwik-logo

And that's where Mobikwik comes into picture. Founded in 2009 by 32-year-old Bipin Preet Singh, who was later joined by Upasana Taku, co-founder, Mobikwik is an Indian mobile Web wallet player that simplifies all sorts of payments. 

All transactions on Mobikwik are powered by a virtual wallet. Adding money to the wallet allows users to make payments for products and services in one click via the mobile app, via the Web site, via a SMS or by dialing a number.

Mobikwik enables users to recharge mobiles and pay bills in India across prepaid and post-paid mobiles, television and DTH, data cards, broadband or landline phones, electricity, gas and insurance. They also have a Mobikwik Application on Android and iPhone with which users can now also purchases offers and products in various categories like Food (Cafe Coffee Day), Shopping (eBay, Yebhi.com) and also Travel (MakeMyTrip).

Interesting nomenclature with Mobikwik as it stands for the kwikest (quickest) way to mobile freedom. 

MobiKwik.com
MobiKwik.com

The co-founder, Bipin, comes with a background of seven years in companies like Intel, Nvidia and Freescale. After the stint of various roles in such big companies, like any other budding entrepreneur in India, he decided to form a startup considering the amount of challenge, growth and fulfilment it would give him.
Today Mobikwik has evolved into a digital wallet service with a turnover of close to 1 billion rupees. Their closest competitor in India would be Airtel Money. Internationally, it would be Paypal.

According to Bipin, Mobikwik currently has the largest number of active digital wallet users in India (more than Airtel Money) who trust the company with their money.  A vast majority of these wallet users use mobile (SMS, IVR or Android or iPhone or Blackberry App) for making their payments. Mobikwik’s Android App, launched in September is the fastest growing wallet app in India--it has clocked 500,000 downloads already.

The company intends to reach out to the 945 million mobile users in the country especially users who are getting on the Web for the first time using their mobiles. This according to them is why they have a very loyal user base.

Some of the key features on Mobikwik Wallet allows the users to pay any bill--be it prepaid mobile, postpaid mobile, electricity or landline with a single click. If you are ordering a pizza or want to buy a coffee or book a movie ticket, it can all be done by using the wallet at the respective merchant destinations. This is the key USP of Mobikwik Wallet--load money once and use it multiple times with a single click.

A big problem results from the fact that any large merchant in India has at least 60-70 different payment options including netbanking, debit cards and credit cards. Each one of these payment options has a totally different payment experience involving multiple steps and redirects. This results in low success rate and consumer apathy--especially on mobile. Certainly Mobikwik Wallet, on the other hand, has created a consistent, fast and repeatable checkout experience for each consumer irrespective of merchant or channel.
 
At this time Mobikwik is looking for funds, which will be allocated to team building, innovation in product development, marketing and scaling up the operations. 

According to them the company started the concept of a digital wallet in 2009, way before other e-commerce companies thought about it. Now, they plan to extend the scale of this wallet across various channels--be it Apps, SMS, IVR or the Web itself. They also plan to launch services such as a bill payment on the move or a movie booking on the mobile. 

Have you used this service and have any reviews to share with us? Do let me know.

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