The way aggregators responded spotlighted on which side of the digital game they were: legacy players, still trying to incorporate digital payments and app-based hailing, said they were accepting the bills that turned invalid, while players such as Ola and Uber claimed their operations are largely digital-driven, and hence, it is business usual. Fast Track, Chennai’s oldest cab aggregator from the callcentre era, had told its drivers to accept cash in a bid to capitalise on probable minor disruptions in its peers operations.
“We are accepting the five-hundreds and the thousands,” said M Prabhu, Chairman of Fast Track. “As far as Fast Track is concerned, it is still status quo, because of which our business has gone up by 10% today. We know there is needless panic among the people.”
Fast Track had stoutly held on its reliance on the cash economy even as aggregators like Ola and Uber had bet big on their digital wallets. The company, which has only a tenth of its revenues coming in through its wallet, had instructed drivers to accept cash as the morning services began to roll.
Fast Track’s peer NTL Call Taxi had broadcast a message to its drivers to accept cash, but its observation through the day of business has been an uptick in digital payments. “Some drivers had run out of hundred-rupee bills, so they had decided not to accept the five-hundreds.
As more of this happened, we noticed our digital wallets were getting used more,” said G Saravanan, Managing Director of NTL, who added the company’s digital presence till now had been negligible. In sharp contrast to the cash loyalists is the response of players like Ola. The company on Wednesday said its digital wallet Ola Money saw a 15-fold increase in recharges, with smaller towns, predominantly on cash, showing growth double of that.
“This move marks the beginning of a significant step towards a cashless economy and Ola Money is at the forefront of our vision of a Digital India,” Pallav Singh, who heads Ola Money. Another Ola spokesperson said: “Our driver partners won’t be accepting old notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 as taxi fare from customers.”
Uber echoed a similar stance along with a note to the government that it should make digital payments easier. In a blog post, it said: “Considering the unique infrastructure challenges India faces, the government and central bank should consider a waiver on two factor authentication (2FA) requirements for low value transactions. This would make it easier for customers to pay for goods and services online.”
Source: The Economic Times