Tag: mobile payments

NPCI wants to establish a unified payment network based on mobile technology

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has launched a new initiative that calls for the unification of payment interfaces throughout the country. The initiative aims to give consumers more access to financial services through their mobile devices in order to accommodate the growing demand for mobile commerce. India is considered one of the fastest growing mobile payments markets, with a massive number of consumers beginning to rely on their smartphones for shopping online and physical stores.

A unified payment network could make mobile commerce more attractive to consumers

NPCI aims to help establish a Unified Payment Interface (UPI), which will allow consumers to collect and send funds through a mobile network. Such a network would leverage a consumer’s actual identity, providing some degree of security when participating in mobile commerce. Consumers would be able to use a password associated with their mobile devices to authenticate their identity and can use the UPI network to send and receive money in real-time. The demand for such money transfer services has grown as more consumers have begun to gain access to smartphones.

India is home to one of the fastest growing mobile shopping markets

India is home to one of the fastest growing smartphone markets in the world. Currently, only 53% of Indians have bank accounts, but more consumers are opting to side with financial institutions in order to take advantage of mobile payments services. Approximately 80% of Indians currently have access to smartphones, which has created a significant opportunity for banks, especially those that seek to break into the mobile sector. As banks begin to enter the mobile market, more consumers are expected to participate in the mobile commerce space.

Merchants could find new opportunities by engaging the mobile commerce market

A unified payment network could unlock new economic opportunities for merchants in India. These merchants are beginning to feel pressure to engage mobile consumers, but few have been able to do so. In the coming years, new mobile services are expected to enhance the ability of merchants to engage consumers, especially those that rely heavily on mobile shopping.

The smartphone application for restaurant waitlisting is making it easier to complete the dining experience.

NoWait, a restaurant waitlisting service, has already established a popular smartphone app that allows diners to be able to “line up” digitally at nearby participating restaurants where they do not have reservations and the application is now rolling out their mobile payments service to boost the available convenience.

These services are meant to shrink the amount of time needed to get a meal without having to wait.

The mobile app has rapidly been increasing in its popularity over the last few years. It offers diners a range of different features, but it also provides a subscription-based suite of tools to restaurants. This allows the businesses themselves to be able to manage their waitlists, server rotation, seating, reservations, and many other important factors. By the time of the writing of this article, there were already nearly 4,000 restaurant companies that had signed on to use this platform. Among them, several are very large chains, such as Buffalo Wild Wings, Chili’s, On the Border, and First Watch, among others. Now, the app is also offering mobile payments.

The mobile payments are available in both the Android and iOS versions of the NoWait application.

The mobile app currently seats more than 25 million diners every month. This is a staggering amount of growth over the same figure in 2014, which had been just over 5 million per month. At that time, it had only just finished its Series B financing round at which time it brought in another $10 million.

It has already seated over 250 million diners who have used the application in order to join the line to wait for a table. The application is appropriate for both smartphone and tablet users. It has been downloaded more than 3 million times and NoWait is predicting that by the end of this year, there will have been about 5 million individual diners who will have headed out to restaurants by way of this mobile application.

By adding mobile payments, the goal is to be able to complete the entire dining experience over the smart device.