Fintech company MobiKwik has joined hands with ecommerce majors Flipkart, ixigo, Snapdeal, Confirmtkt amid the COVID-19 pandemic in a bid to help Indians go digital. MobiKwik Biller Stack is a new product for partners like ixigo who would like to launch the ‘Bill Payments’ category on their mobile apps rapidly. Using the MobiKwik Biller Stack, partners like Flipkart can enable their users to pay utility bills seamlessly on their app.
By powering Bill Payments on partner apps, MobiKwik wants to ensure that millions of Indians can pay digitally for the most fundamental needs such as electricity, TV, mobile recharge, etc. especially during the ongoing COVID-19 situation in India. MobiKwik says they have been successful in meeting their objective as they claim MobiKwik Biller Stack has already clocked Rs 50 crore in gross merchandise value (GMV) within 90 days of launch (in March 2020).
During the COVID lockdown, online businesses were impacted severely; for Ecommerce - only essential products could be sold; and for Travel - services were completely halted. This created a unique problem for these companies - how to keep millions of daily active users engaged on their apps. Bill payment by design is a completely digital product, where the user pays digitally and the biller delivers the service digitally. Using MobiKwik BIller Stack, companies were able to launch a new category on their apps in a matter of days thereby solving the user engagement problem. For MobiKwik, these partnerships meant increasing distribution for its Bill Payments category. MobiKwik Biller Stack was launched first with Flipkart in March 2020 followed by other partners ixigo, Snapdeal, Confirmtkt in April/May 2020.
MobiKwik Biller Stack leverages MobiKwik's reach to 300+ billers covering daily life use cases such as mobile recharge, DTH, electricity, credit card bill payments to name a few. From a technology point of view, the Biller stack uses a Progressive Web Application which is easily displayed within a partner's mobile app. From a user experience point of view, the Biller stack replicates the same fast and simple UX that MobiKwik is known for. The user selects a use case such as DTH (TV top up), chooses a biller such as TataSky and enters his account number and amount to be paid. The user can complete the transaction choosing from multiple payment options - wallet, credit card, debit card, UPI and pay later.
Commenting on the partnerships, Upasana Taku, Co-founder & COO - MobiKwik said, “Launching MobiKwik Biller Stack during COVID-19 was extremely important to us because of its 3X impact - 1) its ability to positively impact millions of Indians, 2) its ability to impact our partners’ businesses positively during COVID-19, and 3) its ability to positively impact our business. MobiKwik has always kept the user at the centre of everything we do, and we are glad that this new product has already touched millions of Indian lives. We are super-thrilled with the MobiKwik Biller Stack’s performance so far - it demonstrates our ability to drive payments innovation at scale and further strengthens our position as a partner of choice.”
With people preferring digital transactions over venturing out of their homes, there has been a spike in demand for online bill payments and recharges, especially in tier 2/3 cities, said Aloke Bajpai, CEO & Co-founder, ixigo. “ixigo is used by millions of daily users in small towns across India and we are glad to partner with MobiKwik to offer greater convenience to pay utility bills, from the comfort and safety of one’s home. This deepens our existing partnership with MobiKwik on payments to now offer our users a seamless experience to pay 300+ billers at their convenience,” he added.