So the question that we put to our readers a few days back – Whether mobile wallets will replace physical leather wallets? – it seems, we are pretty much on track to get a ecosystem where that can be a real possibility!
Paytm, India’s leading mobile wallet and mobile payments company with close to 100 million users today announced that they have introduced cashless payments in educational institutions. Users can now pay school fees & dues, cafeteria bills as well as buy uniforms, books and merchandise through the Paytm Wallet.
Paytm has forged partnerships with several premium educational institutions in the country from pre-schools to colleges, including prestigious names such as IIT Mandi, Universal Education Trust, KN Modi University, Vidyamandir Classes, Made Easy, Career Launcher, Jamboree, Primus Public School, Bangalore, Swaminarayan Gurukul Vidyalaya and a few Delhi Public Schools among others.
According to the PR sent to us, they are also in advanced stage of discussions with all leading IIT’s, IIM’s, central and state universities and will be completing the formal tie-ups soon.
Speaking on this initiative, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Founder & CEO, Paytm said, “We are committed to bringing all services that require regular payment on to the Paytm platform. School fees and educational expenses form a significant part of an Indian consumer’s regular spends. Since this segment involves children, the advent of cashless purchases and payments obviates chances of theft and misplacement that often come with carrying cash. In line with our vision of a cashless economy & to serve the users well, we have enabled cashless payments in some of the most prominent educational institutions. Our aim is to grow this platform multifold in the next 6months. Going forward, we will also aggregate and offer various online courses on Paytm.”
India is World’s third largest education market by size and has over 1.5 million schools and more than 35,000 higher education institutes in India. With market size being so huge, other mobile wallets companies will surely enter this space sooner than later.
Other Mobile Wallet Offline payments
Companies like Paytm and Mobikwik have been aggressively forging offline partnerships since the start of this year. Mobikwik has now partnered with Café Coffee Day, WHSmith, Walmart Best Price Wholesale store among others. Other mobile wallets like Citrus, Oxigen and Airtel money wallets are supporting various offline payments too.
While we are still a long way to go, one thing is sure – every mobile wallet in India is looking at offline partnerships as their next stage of growth and it would not be long before we would expect mobile wallet payments to be commonplace even in offline world.
