BENGALURU: India's largest online retailer
Flipkart is taking a step into the payments business with launch of its wallet and new payment method, called
Flipkart Money
. The development comes after the Bengaluru-based company acquired FX Mart last year, which is powering
Flipkart Money.
Flipkart Money has been launched on Android devices right now, where it can be topped up with Rs 10,000 at a time using credit card, debit card and netbanking. It is expected to be helpful for quick refunds and single click payments on the platform.
Balance is limited to Rs 10,000 only on the wallet and a total of Rs 25,000 can be added to it a month.
Money is part of Flipkart's Wallet which also includes WS Retail Credit (WS Retail is the main seller on Flipkart), Gift Cards and other saved cards on the online retailer
Flipkart's local rival
Snapdeal also has wallet called Freecharge while Alibaba-backed
PayTM operates both a wallet and marketplace.
Flipkart had previously launched a closed wallet in 2011; however, following its shift to a marketplace model in April 2013, it was forced to restrict this wallet to products sold only by WS Retail, a company hived off by Flipkart to comply with India's FDI regulations on retail. This was because closed wallets can only be used to purchase its own products and does not allow purchases from third party merchants, for which companies need a semi-closed wallet license from the RBI.
Flipkart had applied for license through its payment gateway business Payzippy in July 2013; however, it was unable to secure a license. The company shut down Payzippy in November last year.
FX Mart on the other hand, had secured a five-year prepaid wallet license in October 2014 and had also applied for a payment bank license, which it did not receive.