Paytm had made news this year by partnering with Alipay, Alibaba’s third-party online payment platform, to allow payment for international Uber rides using its wallet. As excited as we were, all hopes have come crashing down since Paytm released an advertisement confirming the truth.
Current Paytm wallet cannot be used to make payments for international Uber rides just yet, because of the existing regulations from RBI. Through Paytm’s proposed partnership, Indians could pay for their Uber rides abroad in rupees and straight from the wallet.
Alibaba-backed payment solutions company released a newspaper advertisement and will soon update its users of further developments in this case.
“While the mobile technology can create lower cost and friction free alternatives for cross border small value payments the same is subject to licensing under FEMA (Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999). Any cross border payments services by the payments bank will be offered subject to FEMA authorisations and RBI approvals. As such, the current Paytm Wallet cannot be used for overseas payments,” Paytm said in a statement.
Long story short, a semi-closed wallet, like Paytm’s digital wallet, cannot be used outside the country for payments. Semi-closed wallets are those that can be used for goods and services at specific merchants only, and not for cash withdrawal or redemption.
However, Paytm is ensuring it does not keep its users uninformed and hence released a statement for the same. Paytm’s spokesperson said that the company believes in transparency and thrives to keep its users updated of the developments.
Has the Alipay-Paytm-Uber tie-up hit a roadblock?
According to RBI’s guidelines, it is quite clear Paytm will not get any approvals to allow payments outside India.
Once Paytm’s payments bank commences its operations, all the regulations will be under scrutiny of RBI and FEMA authorizations. Prepaid forex cards also get specific limited approvals before use outside India.
There is still some ray of hope left once all the regulations become clearer to Paytm. A tie-up between Uber and Paytm can help a lot of Indian travelling abroad and killing the idea would definitely have an impact of thousands of travellers.
Source: The Hindu
Paytm is growing really fast and after reading this news I came to know that they are also trying to international payment as well. That’s really a massive growth. Thanks for sharing useful news regularly.