South Africa’s Net 1 U is set to invest up to $40 million in MobiKwik over the next 24 months and have its Virtual Card technology integrated across all MobiKwik wallets in order to provide ubiquity across all merchants in India as the firm targets in India in the next having 150 million users and 500,000 merchants across India.
The two will use their various technologies to enhance their value proposition and differentiation to users, online and offline merchants, increase acceptance, and accelerate growth.
“Our strategic investment in MobiKwik provides us with meaningful participation in one of the largest and fastest growing digital payment markets globally,” said Serge Belamant, Chairman and CEO of Net1. “We are excited to partner with one of India’s most utilized and recognized digital platforms, through which we can introduce our products and services. We believe that this investment will accelerate our ability to build scale in India.
According to a July 2016 Google-BCG study, the size of India’s digital payments industry will reach $500 billion by 2020, representing a ten-fold increase from current levels. The report predicts that more than 50% of India’s internet users are expected to use digital payments by 2020, and the top 100 million users are expected to drive 70% of digital payments by value. The report also predicts that the value of remittances and money transfers that will pass through alternative digital payment instruments will double to 30% by 2020.
There are many similarities between South Africa and India including highly regulated markets, limited infrastructure and large unbanked populations and there have always been close ties and there is growing cooperation between the two countries.
Upasana Taku, the co-founder of MobiKwik, said, “We are excited about our partnership with Net1 and look forward to learning from their best practices in serving the un-banked and under-banked users, while taking progressive steps towards making India a cashless economy. Our pioneering innovations in the fintech industry have helped us maintain this lead position and with support from strategic partners such as Net1, we look forward to further strengthening our product offering and realize our vision to let users save, borrow, pay and invest using MobiKwik.”
MobiKwik is India’s largest independent mobile payments network, with over 32 million users and 100,000 retailers. MobiKwik’s current shareholders include Sequoia Capital, Tree Line Asia, American Express, Cisco Investments, GMO Payment Gateway and MediaTek, as well as Bipin Preet Singh and Upasana Taku, the founders and executive officers.
