Mumbai based private lender IDFC Bank has partnered with Mobikwik and Net1 to launch its virtual prepaid card. The joint venture will be commenced on the VISA platform to help customers of Mobikwik to undertake customised transactions.
“The prepaid card space is evolving fast, encouraged by technological disruption and a growing preference for digital payments. IDFC Bank’s prepaid solutions seamlessly integrate its technology stack with that of MobiKwik, to not only digitise payments but make them transformational, from a customer experience standpoint,” said Avtar Monga, Executive Director, IDFC Bank.
“This marks the beginning of a long-term strategic alliance where both partners can leverage their respective strengths. We are delighted to partner MobiKwik, Visa, and Net1 for one of the largest ever issuance of prepaid cards,” he added.
The co-branded card is scheduled to launch in early December. The partnership introduces IDFC Bank’s biggest entry into the prepaid card segment and significantly enhances MobiKwik’s wallet presence across Visa’s network.
With this partnership, around 65 million users of the MobiKwik will be allowed to access to IDFC Bank’s virtual card embedded within the app, making way for easy digital purchases across all e-commerce websites. Customers of MobiKwik can now generate a 16-digit Visa virtual card using the app and feed it for making payments in the e-commerce and online transactions. This is one of the largest announcement in virtual prepaid cards’ domain, globally.
“On the first anniversary of demonetisation, we are happy to note that Indians are fast developing a digital mindset and paying with the MobiKwik wallet has become a habit for millions of Indians. The IDFC powered virtual card will enable MobiKwik users to transact digitally across millions of merchants both on the Mobikwik and Visa networks,” said Upasana Taku, Co-Founder, Mobikwik.
Prepaid instruments are frequently gaining importance in order to expand in the digital dominated payments market in India. A wider range of payment instruments are coming up in the digital domain as 10 per cent of personal consumption expenditure is driven digitally in India.
Virtual prepaid cards are growing as a popular choice in the payments domain amongst the new league of online shoppers in India.
“We are excited to be working with partners like IDFC Bank, and MobiKwik to enable instruments such as the virtual prepaid card, which bring the same level of security, convenience, and ease of use as we have for debit and credit instruments, particularly in the online space,” said TR Ramachandran, Group Country Manager, India and South Asia for Visa.
Digital payments are not just helping the transactions in becoming convenient, it is also boosting the level of Finacial Inclusion by reaching every nook and corner.
“We are pleased to enable MobiKwik and IDFC Bank to launch a large-scale virtual card deployment using our proprietary MVC technology. This combined initiative facilitates two key components of financial inclusion, namely accessibility, and interoperability, and supports the coordinated effort to move to a less-cash world,” said Dhruv Chopra, Managing Director, Net1 India.
