MobiKwik wallet numbers rise as banking players go through downturn
Fintech major MobiKwik’s Pocket UPI wallet has seen its market share expand to about 12.11 per cent in May, up from 9.3 per cent in January in terms of the total number of PPI (prepaid payment instrument) wallets. The company saw this surge as other major players in the banking space went through a downturn, and the firm expanded its presence into tier-II and III cities.
The company also saw its overall gross transaction value (GTV) share, in terms of the purchase of goods and services, and fund transfers, almost double, from 11 per cent in March to 23 per cent in May.
Among the non-bank players, MobiKwik had about 134.1 million wallets in January, which rose 2 per cent to 136.8 million in May, ranking the company second in terms of wallet numbers.
The Gurugram-based company is second to PhonePe in the non-bank space, which had about 199.3 million wallets as of May 2024.
“Banking on wallet interoperability, we built a feature called Pocket UPI where users can use their wallet over the UPI ecosystem. Another large wallet player went through their own regulatory decline due to which their users were looking for another product of good quality serving their purpose,” said Upasana Taku, co-founder and chief financial officer (CFO), MobiKwik, in an interaction with Business Standard.
In January, after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) placed crippling restrictions on Paytm Payments Bank, the company’s wallet operations came to a standstill.
The Noida-based company, an associate entity of One97 Communications which operates the brand Paytm, saw its wallet numbers decline 39 per cent from 630.7 million in January to 380.5 million in May.
Similarly, another bank player, Airtel Payments Bank, saw its wallet numbers decline about 49 per cent during the same time, Business Standard reported last week. The company stated that the fall in the numbers is because they weeded out dormant zero wallet accounts.
MobiKwik also attributes the growth in its numbers to its expansion in tier-II cities and beyond.
“Net new users are also joining the digital ecosystem. First-time users are figuring out how they can transact digitally. Roughly about 70 to 75 per cent of new users are coming from such cities and towns in India,” Taku added.
Growth in its payment transaction figures comes as the fintech firm is gearing up for an initial public offering (IPO).
MobiKwik, which plans to raise Rs 700 crore, refiled its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) in January.
With the second filing of the DRHP, the company is planning to mop up less than half of what it had aimed to raise earlier.
First Published: Jul 08 2024 | 7:08 PM IST
