Over the last month we have seen an explosion in the number of digital wallets popping up for customers, consumers and businesses alike. This has been validated by the fact that two of India's largest private sector banks, ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank are announcing their plans for a mobile wallet. ICICI Bank this month launched Pockets which integrates a digital wallet, a physical prepaid card and a basic savings bank account. Meanwhile HDFC Bank is yet to announce its digital wallet but an email from the lender's managing director Aditya Puri to customers talking about the same underscores the importance of the digital payments space.It's also worth noting that Chillr, a mobile banking app, has tied up with HDFC Bank to both send and receive money over the platform. According to Chillr, the app will remove OTP requirements and the need to remember account number and passwords for HDFC Bank users. . But in January we also saw that RBL Bank tied up with TranServ, a digital payments company, and iKaaz, a Bangalore-based NFC payments firm, partnered with DCB Bank to launch co-branded wallets too. TranServ launched Shmart!, a digital payments suite for both customers and merchant, where RBL Bank provides semi-closed loop prepaid account to store funds. On the other hand, iKaaz's mobile application, MOWA, facilitates consumers and merchants to make and receive payments based on the mobile number. Shmart! offers a prepaid reloadable wallet for consumers and also gives merchants a number of APIs which they can integrate into their website and…
