Fin-tech company MobiKwik said it will offer 6 per cent annual interest on the account balance to its mobile wallet users.

The company, which competes with Alibaba-backed Paytm, has over 30 million wallet users in the country. MobiKwik claims it is growing at 250 per cent per year and expects to touch 70 million users by the end of 2017.

“This is the first time in India that users can get higher profits than institutional savings on their mobile wallet balance,” MobiKwik said in a statement.

To avail the 6 per cent annual return, users would have to maintain an average of Rs 5,000 or more in their wallets per month. “Profits will be credited to users’ MobiKwik accounts on a monthly basis only. The announcement is part of the company’s plan to expand its services across solutions like instant micro loans,” it said.

This would mean a user maintaining a monthly balance of Rs 5,000 a month would get a reward of Rs 25 per month in his/her wallet.

“This announcement marks the revolutionary transformation of MobiKwik into a digital institution — to fulfil every Indian’s end-to-end financial needs by offering micro loans, profits on wallet balance and cashless transactions. Our mission is to enable users to pay, save, borrow and invest, all using their MobiKwik mobile wallet,” the company’s Co-Founder Upasana Taku said.

Earlier this year, MobiKwik had started offering instant micro loans to wallet users running short on balance as part of its efforts to boost digital payment usage in the country.

The company had recently raised USD 50 million in funding, led by Japanese payments firm Gateway and Taiwanese chip maker MediaTek.

Its other investors include Sequoia Capital and Treeline Asia.

Source: Business Line