India’s Reliance Industries unveiled Jio Money Merchant Solutions, an ambitious plan to introduce digital payments for India’s retail, restaurant and transport sectors.
The move was announced in a presentation by chairman Mukesh Ambani in which he announced the Jio Money Merchant app for merchants will be available from 5 December, according to a number of reports.
The target is to have at least 10 million merchants supporting the mobile wallet “in the coming weeks”, he said.
The company’s telecoms arm, Jio Infocomm, has already shaken the established order in the mobile market and now this latest initiative threatens similar disruption on payments. The move also dovetails with the Indian government’s recent initiative to push more of its citizens to make digital, rather than paper-based, payments.
“To enable low-value, high-volume transactions, merchants, especially small merchants, are an important component of economy,” said Ambani (pictured, left).
“To fuel their transactions, Jio is working to empower Indian merchants by building a digital retail ecosystem which we are calling Jio Money Merchant Solutions,” he added.
Consumers will make payments from a Jio Money wallet app into the merchant’s app, and from then into their bank accounts. Merchants can also use the app to pay suppliers.
The service will support digital transactions of all types, including markets, small shops restaurants, railway ticket counters, buses and even person-to-person money transfers, he said.
Reliance Industries will also support micro-ATMs to boost the rollout of Jio Money.
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