Ewallets saw a surge as commuters opted to use the model to get about town instead of sparing precious cash in multiples of Rs 100 notes
Many people opted to use a cab to commute instead of parting with cash on Wednesday. File pic
It was a night of unearned turn of fortunes — both for Donald Trump and e-wallets. As soon as the demonitisation was announced late on Tuesday night, mobile apps Paytm and Ola Money, some of the popular e-wallet mode of payment, saw over a 1,000 per cent bump in recharges by people adding money to their accounts so as to continue using Uber and Ola cashless.
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Cab over cash
On Wednesday morning, there was a bump in the number of people opting to use the cashless e-wallet instead of physical cash to travel. Sources said that over 80 per cent of these users are in the age group of 18-34 years old.
Since autos and kaali-peelis would require cash to travel, there was a mad rush to use mobile aggregators and fleet cabs as observed in the surge pricing during peak hours. According to officials from Paytm, it saw a 435 per cent rise in online traffic, leading to a surge pricing that jumped by 3-5 times the original fares.
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Madhur Deora, CFO, Paytm said, “We are happy to announce that we have registered a strong surge in volume on our platform.” There was also an increase in the number of new users downloading the Paytm app, which grew by 200 per cent, boosting their user base to 150 million people.
Meanwhile, Pallav Singh, senior vice president, Ola Money said, “Within the past few hours, we saw a growth of over 1,500 per cent on Ola Money recharge.”
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