Mobikwik to stay firm despite Adhaar-based payment systems

Kolkata: Digital wallet company Mobikwik on Thursday said it would stay firm to its three-fold growth projection to USD 10 billion gross merchandise value by the end of 2017 despite the arrival of Aadhaar-based biometric payment system.

"It is not worth commenting now," Mobikwik chief business officer Vineet K Singh said here today when asked how did he perceive relevance of wallets at a time when the government was pushing for Aadhaar-based biometric payment systems.

However, he said, Mobikwik would stay relevent and credible for the market.

The government has already launched BHIM that uses biometric for receiving Aadhaar-enabled payments bypassing debit cards, pin and password.

The app would eliminate the fee payments for service providers like card companies such as MasterCard or Visa.

Meanwhile, Mobikwik is stregthening its presence in the east with the opening of its fourth office in the city and is eyeing to achieve USD 1 billion gross merchandise value (GMV) from West Bengal in 2017.

The company says West Bengal has been a key growth market and currently it has over 1 lakh merchants from the area on its network. Nationally, it aims to ramp it up to 5 million from 1.4 million.

The wallet company said it would pump Rs 300 crore in 2017 for acquisition of merchants and customers. It is also looking for a fresh round of funding to fuel the growth plan. Till now Mobikwik got a total funding worth USD 85 million.

"A portion of Rs 300 crore will be internally sourced or will come from the existing fund while a part of it will be derived from a new round of funding," Singh said.

However, Mobikwik is aimimg at a valuation in excess of USD 1 billion.