Hike, Airtel Payments Bank tie-up for mobile wallet

New Delhi: Messaging app Hike on Wednesday said it has tied up with Airtel Payments Bank to power its mobile wallet product.

Hike users will have access to the bank's vast product line including merchant and utility payments, it added.

The SoftBank-backed app, which has over 100 million registered users, saw over 30 percent month-on-month growth for its wallet service.

"Through this partnership, Airtel Payments Bank gets access to over 100M (million) users on Hike and will begin powering the Hike Wallet product," Hike said in a statement.

Hike Messenger VP (Product) Pathik Shah said the company has seen tremendous traction on the wallet over the last few months, most of it being organic.

It is on track for over 5 million transactions this month with services like Recharge and peer to peer transactions, he added.

"As we scale up the number of services on our platform in the coming months, we expect this to grow even faster," he said.

In light of the new KYC guidelines of Reserve Bank of India for mobile wallets, the partnership will ensure that users have an uninterrupted service when the new guidelines kick in, Shah added.

"The addition of Hike Wallets to our portfolio will position us as one of the largest digital payments platforms in India," A Ganesh, Chief Operating Officer, Airtel Payments Bank said.

Hike was launched in December 2012. In August 2016, in its fourth round of funding, Hike raised of USD 175 million. The round was led by Tencent and Foxconn at a valuation of USD 1.4 billion, having reached the milestone in just under years.

Investors in Hike also include Tiger Global and Bharti.