How Mobile Wallet Companies Can Stay On Top The payment industry is attracting many players because of the opportunity it provides. But how can mobile wallets stay on the top in one of the most active sectors?
By Nidhi Singh
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
You're reading Entrepreneur India, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media.
The demonetization drive has provided a huge boost to all sorts of digital payments in the country. The Digital payment apps are now assertively focusing on brick and mortal retailers and several other online-to-offline networks. Most companies have already announced no transaction fee for merchants and direct bank to bank transactions with zero charges.
In a very short duration, the mobile wallets are growing phenomenally in a big way. In India, the options are unlimited when it comes to using a mobile wallet — there is Paytm wallet, the largest player in the sector claiming more than million users, followed by competitors MobiKwik, FreeCharge and PayUMoney, etc.
One97 Communications Ltd - owned Paytm stole the news last year as it touched a new record by hitting over 45 million users between Nov. 11 – Nov. 21. Many fast growing digital wallet companies also saw massive acquisition last year including Samsung picking up LoopPay and PayPal acquiring Paydiant. The payment industry is attracting many players because of the opportunity it provides.
As mobile becomes the mainstream mode for payments, how can other mobile wallets stay on the top in one of the most active sector?
Making Mergers and Acquisitions Work :
The fight to dominate the payments industry is just a beginning. The mergers and acquisitions boost the combined company scale to battle out rapidly growing competitors. Many foreign payment companies in the fintech startup space see mergers and acquisition as a tactic to strengthen their foothold in the India's online payment segment.
In a move that no one saw coming, Mumbai-headquartered TechProcess was acquired by French electronic payment firm Ingenico. This merger would accelerate Ingenico's growth into the international markets to capture the cross- border online spending.
Online payments solutions provider PayU, owned by South African media company Naspers, last year acquired Mumbai-based fintech firm Citrus Pay. This coalition will be directly competing with Indian payment giants like PayTM backed by Alibaba, Snapdeal-owned rival companies Freecharge and MobiKwik. The payments landscape globally has been abuzz so it makes sense for mergers and acquisition to happen in this segment.
Maintaining Market Dominance :
Payments wallets and lending are two segments that have been recognized as the top merchants in the fintech space. Over the past few years, we have seen more than ten payment companies which have received funding or significant investment from banks and other big players because they want to capture the payment market. The new company is provided with a way to gain more customers with mergers and acquisitions. So, it's now important that the supportive players work together to build a solution to meet new customer expectations in this rapidly changing world.
With the objective to rule the domestic payment market, mergers and acquisitions seem like an opportunity for mobile wallets to beat the competition.
