MobiKwik Enters Hyperlocal Space With 'Explore Nearby' Feature

Mobile payments network MobiKwik on Thursday said it is venturing into the hyperlocal space with the launch of Explore Nearby.

Available on the MobiKwik app, the feature enables discovery of neighbourhood stores, restaurants, and cafes that accept wallet payments.

MobiKwik has partnered more than 10,000 retail stores, which include merchants such as Big Bazaar, Barista, Domino's Pizza, WHSmith India, Archies and Sagar Ratna, among others.

"With the Explore Nearby feature we are connecting offline retail stores with over 30 million users on our platform. Offline stores can now attract MobiKwik users depending on their location and preferences that could result in higher sales," Bipin Preet Singh, Founder-CEO of MobiKwik said.

Users of MobiKwik can also use Explore Nearby to locate the nearest cash-loading point for topping up their wallet balance.

Many of MobiKwik's offline retail partners, such WHSmith India and ICICI Bank, also assist the users to top up their wallet using hard cash.

The feature, live on MobiKwik Android app, is expected to be rolled out to the iOS and Windows versions as well.

"Offline is one of the four main focus areas for us. For offline payments, MobiKwik offers two payment options, one follows the normal OTP flow, and the second that we're pushing in restraurants and other offline retail establishments is 'Bill Push', where you just share your phone number, and you get a bill that is pushed to your app," said Jasjit Singh,Director, Product Management at MobiKwik in a phone conversation with Gadgets 360. He added that Mobikwik has over 10,000 offline merchants at present. "The basic problem that this feature is solving is discovery. Things are very pervasive, everywhere you go, there are places where you could use MobiKwik to pay," he added.

MobiKwik connects its 30 million users with 50,000 retailers and aspires to be the largest source of digital transactions in India. The company's goal is to empower 150 million Indians to pay $5 billion (roughly Rs. 33,322 crores) digitally to 500,000 retailers, it had said earlier.