Hike Brings Mobile Payments to Messaging in India

The Indian mobile payments market is surprisingly active, owing in large part to the recent demonetization efforts that took two largest rupee denominations to worthlessness. We’ve already seen several new mobile payments efforts step into the field, and one of the latest features Hike, at last report the leading mobile messaging app, landing mobile payments capability.

It’s a coup for one big reason: Hike’s launch of mobile payment capability beats Facebook’s WhatsApp—a popular alternative in the region—to the punch. Now, with the new service in place, Hike can offer not only mobile wallet functions but also bank-to-bank transfer systems for a pool of around 100 million users. It even boasts peer-to-peer functionality, which allows for easy money transfer from one user to another, and allows those simple cash transfers to take place from the app.

Sounds like a big bundle—and objectively it is—but you have to remember that there are over a billion people in India, which still leaves a lot of the market untouched. Still, Hike is the first to add payments to a mobile messaging app, and that’s got a little extra panache to it.

WhatsApp, though, will hardly be edged out of this market even if it takes a while to step in. WhatsApp counts around 200 million in India, as part of its total 1.2 billion user figure worldwide. That’s about double what Hike is packing.

India is a pretty rich plum in the mobile payments market; with the government seemingly in a frenzy to shut down cash operations, it’s going to need a solid base of mobile payments options to provide the users with enough choices. Plus, we’ve already seen how Chinese mobile payment services are using investment to wage a sort of proxy war in the region, and Tencent was recently at the forefront of a funding round for Hike.

The mobile payments market is full of change, and we’re seeing that change crop up all over. Hike has an excellent proposition here, and the first-mover advantage as mobile payments in messaging apps go. Given that the competition already has a fairly secure user base, that may not be the advantage it normally would. Still, the market is shaping up, and it will likely be a dynamic one to come.