INDIAN CONCEPT OF PAYPAL

The Times of India group has launched Wallet365, an online payment system that is almost completely on the lines of PayPal; I say almost, because there is one way in which it differs from PayPal, and that difference could well be its raison d’etre. For Wallet365 lets you make online payments for goods/services that are denominated in Indian rupees (INR), something you can’t do currently with PayPal in India. And this is what makes PayPal practically irrelevant in the Indian context.
For those who are familiar with PayPal, Wallet365 works in exactly the same way. It is being marketed as an ‘E-Wallet’, which enables individuals and businesses to make payments to one another in an easy, secure and affordable manner in real time & completely online. All you need is an email id. Individuals can send/receive money electronically, make online purchases, pay utility bills online or store money electronically for future purchases. Merchant establishments can collect payments safely and securely from online buyers, obviating the need for credit cards. Wallet365 has been launched by Times Money Ltd., a subsidiary of the TOI and the financial backend (payment gateway) is provided by Yes Bank. To facilitate online shopping and paying bills, Wallet365.com has signed-up with over 100 merchants. And it will surely get a huge push from online transactions on Indiatimes.
Actually, Wallet365 is NOT India’s first online payment solution of this kind. The first to do so was bazzee.com (now eBay India) with its Indianised version of a PayPal kind of payment mechanism called PaisaPay. I would speculate that PaisaPay was also created for similar reasons as Wallet365 i.e. because of PayPal’s inability to honour INR denominated ecommerce transactions. But PaisaPay is just an internal payment mechanism on the Bazzee/eBay website.
The TOI group has an unassailable position amongst media related businesses in India. I think they have made a very smart move by launching Wallet365. But to make this an ecommerce industry standard in India, you need more than just clout or influence; you need to have a consistently focused vision. The diversified nature of their group’s activities may well prove to be the ‘spanner in the works’ for Wallet365.