Note drive to boost non-bank players, says Assocham

One of the immediate fallouts of the demonetisation of high value currency notes would be the mushrooming of non-bank players such as Paytm and FreeCharge into the payment business, as more and more retailers in the goods and service value chain would be compelled to shift to non-cash modes for customer transactions, an ASSOCHAM Paper has said.

These players engaged into the business known as the pre-paid payment instruments (PPI) work as mobile and digital wallets. While as many as 45 PPI players have started offering services, it is only a handful of operators that have been aggressively ramping up and marketing their operations.

“However, demonetisation has come as a big opportunity for them. It is not only during this period of cash crisis that the PPIs would see a huge growth, but going forward the system would penetrate into small kirana (grocery) stores as well; it would not be a surprise if well-run road side dhabas also start accepting bills through mobile wallet players,” said ASSOCHAM Secretary General DS Rawat Offering stored value service to customers, the non-bank PPI issuers are allowed by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to enable transactions for purchase of goods and services besides remitting payments out of the mobile wallets.