Why Mobile Wallets Will Die

Demonetization has proved the smartphones to be mightier than the wallets—one that holds cards and cash. For any kind of requirement—right from purchasing a chocolate to transferring money—we have many digital alternatives for cash. The use of these alternatives is time-saving, as we don’t have to wait in a queue at the ATMs and banks to withdraw cash and just can make the payments in seconds by simply using a mobile app. The huge number of applications available leaves many of them confused as they think which app is the best to make a payment. So which app do you use? Is it any one of the these—credit cards, net banking, NEFT, UPI, Aadhaar-linked BHIM, IMPS, RTGS, or USSD?

People are using wallets to pay the bills for their coffee, car rides, movie tickets, and so many other things. But the mobile wallets may see a fall in the upcoming period. Any guess, why it would be so? Let’s have a look at some points.

Even though Paytm is one of the highly used apps, it has some limitations too. These mobile wallets can be used only by smartphone owners and are not interoperable. It is mandatory for the receiver and sender to have the same company’s account for transferring money—that is it only operates MobiKwik to MobiKwik, Freecharge to Freecharge, and Paytm to Paytm. Apart from this, no interest is gained on the money transferred to a wallet. Also, the small-scale vendors such as small shopkeepers are not able to withdraw money more than Rs 25,000 per month hampering their cash flow.

So if the problems continue to persist, is it going to be easy for us to keep using these apps? Hence, we need wallets, which can be more user-friendly. Can you suggest any such wallets? Feel free to share your thoughts.