Mobile wallets, traders setting up camps to train people in e-payments

To spend Rs 150 cr in six months to organise awareness programmes, media campaigns

Mobile wallet companies and trader organisations are going all out to educate people about e-payments. According to market sources, mobile wallet, payment gateways and e-payment companies alone are planning to spend around Rs 150 crore to organise camps, media campaigns around awareness programmes. 

Mobile wallet major Paytm has announced a 100-member merchant helpdesk to educate merchants across India. The company also plans to invest close to Rs 50 crore on this drive.

This initiative will be implemented with a multi-channel outreach programme involving mass media, on-ground initiatives and strengthening in-house merchant support team. 

With around 1.5 million merchants accepting Paytm at present, the company aims to work closely with the merchants by seeking feedback and helping them understand digital payments. 

Under this programme, merchants will be educated on all the important aspects, which are currently becoming a concern and dispelling a lot of myth around safety, security and delay in money transfer to the bank account. The company will also use mass media to sensitise merchants on all these aspects. 

“Under this programme, the helpdesk will educate its users that the delay in transfer in a few cases is accounted due to the banking systems which are going through stress due to load spikes or may not respond due to downtime or network fluctuation at the their end. In such cases, banks could take up to seven working days to credit the amount in the bank account,” said Sudhanshu Gupta, vice-president, Paytm. 

Other players such as FreeCharge, MobiKwik, Oxigen are all organising various drives via advertisements, social media campaigns etc to promote their respective wallets. 

Trader organisations, which have seen a major dip in business, are also organising a number of camps to help merchants and shopkeepers understand cashless economy. 

The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), has been organising roadshows and camps to make traders understand cashless economy. The trade body is targeting the unorganised sector where merchants have still not moved to the cashless ways of transactions. 

By the end of March 2017, it plans to organise around 100 major conferences on cashless drive as well as 5,000 camps all over the country. “It’s the small traders who need to be taught about the various cashless means as they are losing out on business at present. We hope to reach out to 10 million merchants. We want the government to aid us so that we can take the initiative further,” said Praveen Khandelwal, secretary-general, CAIT.