e-wallets aplenty, but cash still rules

T-wallet tops in e-transactions

Even though there were several players in the market, the Telangana government’s T-wallet app emerged top in digital transaction with `38.8 crore since January 2017, according to the e-taal portal by the ministry of information technology. The T-wallet recorded around 3.17 lakh government and non-government transactions since June 1, 2017

The T-wallet app, launched on June 1, 2017, was supposed to boost the numbers. However, there was no significant transactions.

Mr Jayesh Ranjan, IT secretary, noted, “Even though the initial transactions were high, currency became easily available and the tempo was lost.”

Subsequently, there was a slowdown in the T-wallet transactions. It has recorded around 2.5 lakh non-government transactions. State governments rolled out their own digital wallets like the AP Purse by Andhra Pradesh and the T-wallet app by Telangana, post-demonetisation.

Banks also launched their own wallets like State Bank Buddy by SBI, POCKETS by ICICI and IndusInd Bank launched its own wallet in association with MobiKwik. Telecom are players like BSNL, Airtel and Idea also come out with e-wallets.

In such scenario, the Twallet took a beating. Mr M.S.Reddy, who owns a franchise of Mee Seva centre, noted, “Though I have registered for the Twallet, we hardly use it because of better options. Also, the awareness about PayTm is more than that of the BHIM and the Twallet.”

The unique feature of the T-wallet is that can work on ordinary phone, said Mr Ranjan.