FreeCharge launches digital wallet

Bengaluru: FreeCharge, a digital platform for recharge and utility payments, today announced the launch of 'FreeCharge digital wallet' in partnership with private sector lender Yes Bank.

In April, e-commerce major Snapdeal had acquired FreeCharge in a 'cash and stock' deal, marking "one of the largest acquisitions" in the Indian digital commerce space.

"FreeCharge wallet is a combined account between Snapdeal and FreeCharge... We are excited about this because we are creating one of the largest mobile commerce ecosystem over here.

"We are talking about probably the largest base of users, largest amount of transactions, frequency of transactions...," FreeCharge CEO and co-founder Kunal Shah told reporters here.

He added: "... We are talking about almost 80 percent of our transactions happening on mobile, this number two years ago was 10-15 percent. We are expecting this to continue and go close to 90 percent in the near term and therefore seamless payment option is required.

"With combined power of Snapdeal and FreeCharge, we will have the most powerful ecosystem of payments."

FreeCharge has a volume of over 200 million transactions annually with an ecosystem of 8.2 million daily unique users, 4 million monthly engaged hours, 15 million stored cards, combined with GMV of over USD 4 billion, the FreeCharge digital wallet is set to become India's "most" used wallet in the next six months.

Commenting on the launch, Snapdeal CEO and co-founder Kunal Bahl said, "Consumer needs are constantly evolving and we feel it is the right time to launch a trusted and future rich digital wallet service."

"At Snapdeal, we are building an ecosystem that powers billions of digital commerce transactions. With the launch of FreeCharge digital wallet, we will now play an even more intrinsic role in our customers' lives," he added.