One97 Communications (Paytm) and Mobikwik are among the latest companies to be allowed by the Reserve Bank of India to offer their customers semi-closed prepaid wallets: these wallets will allow customers to store money in these wallets, and purchase goods and services offered through third party merchants. Other entities to have received prepaid wallet licenses include: - DigitSecure India Private Limited for a prepaid payment instrument called HotRemit. (HotRemit. Really?) - QwikCilver Solutions Pvt. Ltd., which runs a white-labeled gift cards service called QwikCliver. It's also worth noting that Beam Money had surrendered their prepaid wallet license, saying that a major drawback was that, because it's a semi-closed wallet, it did not allow users to withdraw money from the wallet. (note: more on types of wallets below) * This means that Mobikwik will not need to rely on Atom Technologies to power its wallet any more, although they might need to work on their customer acquisition practices: they shouldn't be creating accounts without user consent. Update: Upasana Taku of Mobikwik informs us that 'since 23rd July MobiKwik flow now asks user to explicitly click on "Create Wallet" button before a new wallet account is created.' We checked, and there is still no opt-out option. More importantly, though, both Paytm and Mobikwik can now do two key things: Firstly, they can create marketplaces where consumers buy goods and services from third party vendors, and if, due to payment gateway issues, the money can be stored in a wallet and used to transact again. Given…
