Currency ban: Freecharge‘s balance jumps 12x overnight

Moneycontrol BureauSnapdeal-owned mobile wallet Freecharge has reported a sharp 12X overnight jump in the average wallet balance as consumers loaded up their wallets to face a cashless day across India.

A Paytm spokesperson said the company is witnessing a major spike in download numbers. It will share the data soon.

India users do a trillion US dollars’ worth of payments annually, off which more than 90 percent are in cash. “We at MobiKwik were trending to process USD 1 billion of payments in 2017. With this policy change, we expect a 10X impact - we expect to easily hit USD 10 billion in payments volume by 2017,” says Bipin Preet Singh, CEO of MobiKwik.

Wallets such as Freecharge, Paytm and Mobikwik are used extensively by users to conveniently pay for utilities like cab rides, metro, phone recharges, electricity, gas, petrol, DTH and lots more.

"Freecharge has been on a mission to Make India Cashless. The announcement made by the Prime Minister yesterday is the biggest boost to creating a cashless India. The 12x surge we have witnessed is unprecedented and clearly driven by this big announcement," says Govind Rajan, CEO Freecharge.

Meanwhile, other ecommerce firms also welcomed the move by PM Modi.  "While e-commerce companies that see a huge chunk of payments happening through Cash on Delivery mode will face some challenges in the initial few days, in the long run this move will only bring about positive changes," Says Manoj Gupta, CEO and Co-Founder, Craftsvilla.