[www.keralites.net] Why e-wallets are not compatible!

 

NEW RULES NEEDED - Why e-wallets are not compatible! Rachel Chitra       Customers, who are regulars on Ola, Uber or shopping sites, many a time find themselves having to use multiple wallets as some merchants are supported only by a specific few. The handicap is made more severe by the fact that you cannot transfer money from one wallet to another easily -or in other words `interoperability' that all banking platforms, including wallets, offer. Taking to twitter, Paytm CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma said e-wallets offered interoperability, even as he got trolled for the same claim. "One can take money from Paytm wallet to any bank account and tax to any other wallet. 100% portable.True portable," said Sharma. In responses to customers Sharma tweeted, "Take money to bank at no cost to you (option in passbook). Add add money from bank to any other wallet. 100% interportable switch. Can you move money from Paytm to any other wallet? Yes!" But within a few minutes, Paytm's CEO took a Uturn and tweeted that "regulation does not permit wallet to wallet transfer of money ." Both of which statements do not address the issue at hand, according to other e-wallet players. "We have been petitioning RBI and the ministry of finance for more than three years. We are not allowed to transfer money between wallets. We can only transfer money to and from bank accounts. Permitting interoperability will really help scale up," said Upasana Taku, co-founder and director, Mobikwik. "RBI permitting e-wallets to carry as much as Rs 20,000 came as a great boost. A change in regulation on the interoperability front will boost growth of wallets," said Taku. Industry observers said another deterrent to collective lobbying is the wallets for now do not seem to have collective interests. Last week, Mobikwik disputed PayTM's numbers that they had crossed 100 million users. "In most industries, companies come together to form an industry body like iSPIRT, CATMi or CLAI . Banks with the help of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) have interoperability at all levels.With wallets, there is no collective voice or forum for them to make their representations," said Lokvir Kapoor, CEO, Pine Labs. "At the consumer end again, with concerns being voiced as to the security of e-wallets, there are no redressal forums. For banking frauds or negligence, there is the banking ombudsman, but for e-wallets?" asks Kapoor. Concerns about e-wallet security , led SBI to stop supporting Paytm, Mobikwik, FreeCharge, Oxigen on its platform since last June. ICICI Bank on Sunday said it has stopped supporting Flipkart's PhonePe UPI application. In September, Freecharge told TOI that about 100 customers had lost up to Rs 2.9 lakh while using its services and it has registered a complaint. "As per UPI, only bank applications can be used by customers. We will have to take up with RBI and NPCI to get nonbanks blocked," said Manju Agarwal, deputy MD, SBI. Cite reasons for blocking, PhonePe to ICICI, P18 After ICICI Bank blocked UPI transactions made through the Flipkart-owned PhonePe app, its cofounder & CEO Sameer Nigam, urged the country's largest private bank to cite reasons for its move. About 72 hours ago, ICICI Bank denied permission to its customers to link their accounts to PhonePe. The bank had told TOI in a prepared statement on Sunday , that it had raised `security concerns' at appropriate forums about PhonePe's access to Unified Payments Interface (UPI) data. Nigam wrote in an open letter on Monday that due to ICICI Bank's move, about 20,000 transactions had failed which amounted to Rs 5 crore. No one is telling us what the exact issues are, yet ICICI Bank claims the blockage will stay until the concerns are resolved, he said.The timing of ICICI Bank's action against PhonePe is surprising as the app has been live since August last year.PhonePe is a third-party app but it inked a partnership with Yes Bank to go live on UPI. Interestingly , Flipkart recently integrated UPI payments on its website and is offering customers cashback on their wallet when they us PhonePe UPI payment. "Our UPI payments integration has been live on Flipkart, Myntra and a couple of smaller merchants' websites since October 2016. So ICICI had more than two months to inform Yes Bank, NPCI or us if they felt our solutions did not meet the UPI guidelines. Either they felt our integration was okay until now, or they felt we were being restrictive, but decided to sit on this fact till now for reasons known only to them," he said, while requesting the bank to share its de tailed reservations so that PhonePe can review them.Till Monday evening, PhonePe or Yes Bank did not put out any official communication, claimed Nigam. TOI reported in its January 16 edition that latest developments are indicative of a turf war brewing between the traditional banking firms and new age digital payment companies.The State Bank of India deputy managing director Manju Agarwal had told TOI that the bank is making sure customer data doesn't leak, and that they were planning to take the issue with the Reserve Bank of India and National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to get non-banks blocked. Nigam claimed his company had taken all necessary steps before it went live on UPI. "We went through over a 100 plus use cases, detailed certification, vulnerability assessment, penetration testing and third party application security testing, before NPCI gave us permission to go live." Nigam said he was hoping that ICICI Bank will reverse its move and work towards finding a lasting solution.      

 

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