Ola has tied up with Bharat Petroleum in Bangalore to make fuel e-vouchers available for its drivers. It has also tied with Axis Bank to put up a mobile ATM in its Bangalore office where drivers can withdraw cash from. Ola’s drivers need to have their Aadhaar cards linked to their bank accounts to withdraw money. Ola said that ‘thousands’ of its drivers had used e-vouchers and cash withdrawals so far. The service will be available till the end of December and be expanded to other (unnamed) cities. It had also tied up with ICICI Bank to let drivers exchange their old Rs 500 and 1000 notes (which was permitted till the 24th of November). Like Axis Bank, ICICI Bank had set up a kiosk in Ola’s office to exchange the demonetised notes. On the user end, Ola tied up with Punjab National Bank for mobile ATMs in its cabs in Kolkata, Hyderabad with SBI and Andhra Bank. The company expects to launch more such facilities in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Chandigarh and Ahmedabad in the coming weeks. It is unclear how this feature works, given that ATMs must have some security prerequisites for operation. Effects of demonetisation Following the Indian government’s demonetisation move, the Reserve Bank of India had to increase the mobile wallet loading capacity from Rs 10,000 to Rs 20,000 till the end of December. This was precedented due to long queues outside ATMs and banks to deposit and withdraw money. Earlier today, the RBI placed a withdrawal limit…
