28th Decembe - Industry monitoring (Spice Money)
- Priyanka Kanodia
- Dec 28, 2018
- 5 min read
Spice Money
Spice Money claims to have crossed Rs 1400 Cr in gross transaction value
Publication- ET Tech
Edition- Online
Spice Money, a business unit of Modi group owned DiGiSPICE, claims to have crossed the milestone of Rs.1400 crore in gross transaction value. In a statement, the company said that it has one lakh entrepreneurs, managing transactions worth $2 billion, and serving 4 million unique consumers so far. Spice Money uses a network of ‘kirana store’ to function as a ‘MINI BANK’ Branch and includes offerings such as Cash deposit, Cash withdrawal, Balance inquiry, Bill payments, Aadhaar Enabled services (AePS), Air Time Recharge, PoS Services, Railway ticketing services etc. through the customer service points (CPS).
"With Spice Money, we have always endeavored to add greater momentum to the Digital India movement by bringing the cause of Financial Inclusion to its logical conclusion with practical implementation and opening the gates for financially underserved communities to join the digital ecosystem" said Chairman Dilip Modi.
"We have brought significant value to the micro-entrepreneurs and their customers by enabling ease of accessibility to financial services, e.g. turning kirana stores into mini-bank branches. By creating an easily accessible digital economy, citizens are also being encouraged to turn their cash savings into digital deposits which are secure and can be withdrawn at ease" he added.
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Industry News
RBI asks why don’t you pay money online; here’s what its digital payment survey wants to know
Publication- The Financial Express
Edition- Online
Reserve Bank of India has launched a survey to assess people’s payment habits, ostensibly to gauge the awareness and popularity of digital payments and the reasons for not using it. Reserve Bank of India has launched a survey to assess people’s payment habits, ostensibly to gauge the awareness and popularity of digital payments and the reasons for not using it. The survey is also taking suggestions on how to promote digital payments. The survey is originally meant to approach 6,000 people to be selected from six cities viz, Delhi, Mumbai Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru and Guwahati.
It takes various parameters such as age, occupation, income level, educational qualification into account. The last name on the list picked up 12.6% late in 2017 and is often seen as the one that will eventually acquire the digital payments startup — though both companies deny it at present. Ganesh Mohan, head of strategy, Bajaj Finserv Group, says, “Our equity position in MobiKwik is primarily intended to ensure we are a strategic investor and agendas of both organisations are aligned.” Mohan sees the investment as “an important capability investment” and will stay invested at a level “that ensures continued engagement from both sides.” The results of RBI’s survey may come in handy to assess the success of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Digital India campaign. Modi and his associates had cited promotion of cashless economy as one of the main reasons behind demonetization.
The questions The users are asked if they are aware of the various modes of digital payments such as BHIM UPI, and also more traditional ones including net banking, NEFT, RTGS, IMPS. Survey takers will have to check the modes that they are aware of. The idea is not only to measure the success and popularity of digital payment methods but also to understand if and why people do not choose those as their preferred mode of payment. This is evident by queries such as “Tick hindrance faced while doing digital payments (can tick more than one)” A few major factors are often cited as hindrances people face in digital payments, such as complexity of digital transactions; cost-effectiveness of cash payments; less trust in digital mode; lack of resources for making digital payments (mobile phones, cards, Internet, etc); and the unfamiliarity with the digital methods. Add to that a shortage of Point of Sale (PoS) machines, QR codes, and better Internet connectivity.
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Beware! UPI app user loses Rs 6.8 lakh from his SBI account; Was it fraud? Why it happened
Publication- The Financial Express
Edition- Online
UPI app users beware! In a recent case of fraud, a Noida-based UPI (Unified Payments Interface) app user has reportedly lost Rs 6.8 lakh from his SBI savings account. The person recently lodged a complaint with the police, saying that during the last two months the money got transferred 7 times from his bank account and he didn’t get any SMS alert may be because he doesn’t have a smart phone. He came to know about this fraud when he visited his bank branch to withdraw some money. The question, however, arises: How was such a fraud possible, particularly keeping the fact in mind that the UPI app is claimed to be very safe and secure?
Legal and financial experts say that such frauds are not possible without resorting to high-end phishing techniques and tricking the users. “Indians are not yet equipped enough to prevent from such attacks. While the government proposes to make the economy cashless, but it must be kept in mind that Indian population is still at a nascent stage of adapting to this revolution. While technology may become 100% accurate, unless the person using the technology has adequate knowledge, including being cautious of such attempts, success of such apps will always be doubtful,” says Advocate Sumit K Batra.
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Flashback 2018: Blockchain still a buzzword in India amid ‘cryptocalypse’
Publication- Tech Circle
Edition- Online
It has been a year of mixed fortunes for blockchain in India. In the build-up to the new year, the distributed ledger technology had garnered a lot of attention, and was considered a panacea for trust deficit and security threats. Early in 2018, however, the technology was called into question -- especially in the context of cryptocurrencies or crypto-assets for which blockchain is the underlying system -- and this set the tone for the rest of the year. Tough stance Countries such as Estonia, Georgia, the UAE, Sweden, the US and the UK had already taken the lead in pioneering blockchain applications in the public sector in 2017.
According to a PwCFicci report, Dubai, which recently committed to transitioning all government transactions to blockchain by 2020, estimated that, using the technology, it could save nearly 100 million pages of documents generated in paperwork each year, 25.1 million hours of productive time and nearly 411 million kilometres of travel time for its citizens. Buoyed by the global success of blockchain-led governance and public-sector programmes, the Indian government’s think tank, Niti Aayog, had already started looking into India-based applications of blockchain.
Some states in the country were also looking at developing state-level public programmes based on the technology. Andhra Pradesh, for example, announced a partnership with the Swedish firm ChromaWay11 to secure citizen data on a blockchain, besides exploring blockchain use in various other fields such as smart cities and transport. The Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology (IDRBT), established by the Reserve Bank of India, had published a white paper on the application of blockchain technology in the banking and financial sectors in the country.
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