Hiring is up.
Online mobile payment wallets have cashed in on the confusion caused by demonetization in India as they are on a hiring spree to get small merchants enrolled for the free service.
Taking the current circumstance as a once in a lifetime opportunity, mobile wallet companies are doing rigorous campaign – both offline and online – to get more people and merchants signed up for their service.
The new hires will be entrusted to canvas people to move to digital cash and cut the reliance on cash payment. But in a heterogeneous society like India, not all people know how to use mobile wallets.
According to reports, there are 1 billion mobile users in India and each one of them is a potential customer for mobile wallet companies. But if the digital wallet companies come forward to educate more people on how to use their service, it could prove productive.
Many small-scale merchants are facing a drastic drop in sales as people have started relying more on supermarkets that accept card payment. But the current situation is something that is not heard about and the success of mobile wallets is something that cannot be predicted.
The far-reaching success of mobile wallets is doubtful and question whether customers who pay Rs. 100 or Rs. 200 will be ready to use mobile wallets is something that only time can tell us.
Since the announcement of demonetization on November 8, Mobile Wallet companies have been competing to fill the front-page ads of newspapers, many of which is congratulating Modi for his swift move.
Alibaba Group backed Paytm, has added 700 sales representatives since Nov. 8, taking its number of agents to 5,000 and is planning to double its employee base from 4,500 to 10,000 in the next few months.
Another big question that looms above the head of mobile wallet companies is whether the current business model is sustainable.
Paytm had recently slashed its fee for merchants until De. 31. The current fee levied by Paytm from merchants ranges from 1% to 4% and the most money-spinning segment is telephone and utility bill payments.
Meanwhile, MobiKwik, another mobile wallet, is not charging fees until March 2017 in an effort to increase its user base.