Transform mobile payments in India

Telecom deals will transform mobile payments in India

by | Jun 5, 2020 | Buzz of the week, Smart Devices, Telecom

After Facebook–Jio deal, Google and Amazon could also identify their telco partners to future-safe their mobile payments businesses in India.
Share to lead the transformation

Ahead of monsoon’s arrival, the Indian telecom sector is pepping up for an enthralling deals season. While the spotlight is on Jio Platforms, investment speculations are abuzz for Vodafone Idea and Airtel too. These strategic investments (between global internet giants and Indian telcos) have the potential to transform mobile payments in India.

While the Facebook-Jio deal announced on 22 April continues to be a towering one, other significant deals involving Jio Platforms have also taken place. Abu Dhabi-based Mubadala Investment Company has announced to invest ₹ 9,093.60 crore for a 1.85% equity stake in Jio Platforms on a fully diluted basis.

More such investments in Jio Platforms are understood to be brewing.

The Jio Platforms deals have stoked similar developments for other telecom players as well. Earlier, there was a buzz around Google mulling a stake in Vodafone Idea Limited (VIL) and now a likely investment by Amazon in Bharti Airtel is the talk of the industry.

The landfall

It all started with Facebook buying a stake of 9.9% in Jio Platforms, which is a parent to RJio, India’s biggest telco by subscribers as well as revenues. The deal was valued at Rs 43,574 crore.

Four other significant stake purchases in Jio Platforms followed within a month’s time by various global majors, mostly investors. These were: Silver Lake (1.15% stake for Rs 5,656 crore), Vista Equity Partners (2.32% stake for ₹11,367 crore), General Atlantic (1.34% for ₹6,598 crore), KKR (2.32% for ₹11,367 crore), and Mubadala Investment (1.85% for ₹ 9,093.60 crore).

Thus, in a span of just six weeks, a total of ₹87,655.35 crore has flown into Jio Platforms’ coffers for a stake sale of 18.97%. It is understood that the amount would be used by super parent Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) to pare a sizable chunk of the debt it took for the RJio telecom services subsidiary.

Why so bullish on Indian telcos?

With India’s telecom average revenue per user (ARPU) being among the lowest worldwide and the telcos being neck-deep in debts, the enthusiasm of foreign investors seems mystifying at first sight.

In the last few years, several consolidations and shakeouts have brought down the number of private-sector telecom players from around 15 to just three. A number of foreign investors have lost their monies in the process. There even have been speculations that the sector could end up being a duopoly in the long run.

It is also a well-acknowledged fact that not only voice but even data is now commoditized. This means that investments made into pure-play voice or data networks could take very long periods to recoup. In fact, given the high cost of assets (including spectrum and licenses) and the consistently low ARPUs, it is even likely that those investments may never find a profitable return.

This newfound enthusiasm and rush of foreign investors then can’t imply confidence in India’s telecom story. It has to be something much more promising and bigger.

It’s the mobile payments story

A look at the investments made in Jio Platforms shows that the mobile-payments factor has played a driving role. If Google and Amazon decide to invest in VIL or Airtel, that too would be driven by a mobile payments consideration.

As noted in another Better World story (See: Will FB–Jio deal create magic?), while Reliance Jio already has a UPI license for its Jio Money payments platform, WhatsApp is yet to receive a license for rolling out a payment service for all its users in India.

A 9.9% stake in Jio Platforms opens the possibility for Facebook to process mobile payments over WhatsApp using Jio Money as an enabling platform. This could mean a world of difference for Facebook, which has silently watched Google Pay and Amazon Pay amass significant user base and gross transaction values.

According to the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the UPI payments market, including mobile payments, stood at Rs 2.18 trillion for the month of May 2020 alone. Also, Google Pay is understood to be having more than 65 million active monthly users.

Facebook is eyeing a big slice of the UPI pie in India, which as per Better World estimates, will be more than Rs 25 trillion in FY2020-21.

Clash of titans awaited

Despite a strong foothold in India, Google can’t risk undermining Facebook’s capabilities. It will certainly like to bolster its position further in the mobile payments market. Amazon too would like to protect and grow its market share.

So if Facebook has taken a stake in RJio’s parent Jio Platforms, it may be logical for Google and Amazon to identify strategic investment opportunities with other pan-India telcos. The obvious choices would be VIL and Airtel. However, while Airtel hold a UPI license, VIL doesn’t have one (it surrendered the M-pesa license last year). Nevertheless, VIL continues to be the second-largest telco by number of subscribers.

On the BSE, stocks of VIL and Airtel rose 6.41% and 3.89%, respectively, on 4 June, while the Sensex closed marginally lower by 0.38%.

It is another matter that while a 5% stake sale could get Airtel cash worth USD2 billion, a similar stake sale would get VIL just around USD110 million at current valuations. So while a stake sale would enable Airtel to pare a significant part of its debt, for VIL it would only amount to a short lease of life.

This also means that for a VIL deal to be strategically meaningful, a larger stake sale would be required. It remains to be seen if VIL would embrace such an idea, especially at a time when the telco has witnessed some green shoots in the recent months.

That consideration apart, there is a high potential that telecom deals will transform mobile payments in India. This will also change the dynamics between telcos and over-the-top (OTT) companies at large. More about that later.

MORE FROM BETTER WORLD

Atal Community Innovation Centre launched

Atal Community Innovation Centre launched

Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas & Steel Dharmendra Pradhan launched Atal Community Innovation Centre (ACIC) in New Delhi, to encourage the spirit of innovation at the community level. This initiative aims to encourage the spirit of innovation through solution-driven design thinking to serve society, a PIB release said.

Speaking on the occasion, Pradhan said, Atal Innovation Mission has a key role to perform in order to achieve the target of five trillion dollar economy by 2025. He urged the NITI Aayog to open innovation Centres in all Gram Panchayats of the country to promote local innovation. Pradhan said innovation is part of every Indian’s daily affairs and there is need to support and promote them.He said that traditional and conventional knowledge available in the country needs to be supported and brought into the mainstream, through innovative mechanism.

Dharmendra Pradhan

The minister urged for innovative mechanism to harness and support traditional knowledge in the country.

Lauding the efforts of NITI Aayog in coming up with the idea of ACICs, the Minister said that they will make available cutting-edge innovation platforms across all corners of our country, with a focus on Aspirational Districts, Tier 2 and 3 cities and to North-east and J&K which will give a fillip to the skill development and employment opportunities in these areas. ACIC’s grassroot-level approach shall focus on a community oriented problem solving through small ideas with a big impact. ACICs will become a conduit for CSR funding by private and public sector firms in addition to direct funding through Atal Innovation Mission (AIM).

Pradhan said reducing the lab to land distance is one of the key objectives of AIM and Atal Community Innovation Centre will help in further strengthening our mission to strengthen the entrepreneurial ecosystem of India. ACICs will add a new chapter to India’s innovation story. It is a platform where the most innovative minds of the country can get access to solutions to modern entrepreneurial challenges.

The Minister also said that India produces approx. 600 MMT of non-fossilised biomass through farm waste, which if converted to energy can help usher prosperity in rural economy, promote a sustainable energy future & make our Annadatas, our ‘Urjadata’, in line with Hon. PM’s vision of Waste to Wealth creation. This is a CSR initiative in true sense.He expressed full support for the culture of innovation in the Country and assured that the public sector undertakings from Steel and Petroleum Sectors will provide support and hand-holding in this innovation mission. “I have asked Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) to support this initiative, I also request NITI Aayog & AIM to innovate ACICs to help in finding innovative solutions to extract consumable energy from Biomass available in the country”, Pradhan said. The Minister added that Unique and incentivized solutions offered by ACICs will encourage students, researchers and other individuals/group of individuals to ideate and design novel solutions. ACICs will also connect innovative thinkers to our market and mainstream economy.

ACIC is a new initiative of Atal Innovation Mission to support community innovation drive in the country. The program is directed to encourage the spirit of innovation through solution driven design thinking to serve the society. It will focus on underserved and unserved regions of the country which at present lack a vibrant start-up and innovation ecosystem. ACIC will be established either in PPP mode or with support of PSUs and other agencies. The maximum grant-in-aid support form AIM will be up to 2.5 crores subject following compliance to ACIC guidelines and contributing matching form the host institutions and their funding partners.

Following are the distinguishing features of the program:

  • Enabling infrastructure for building innovation ecosystem in above proposed areas.
  • Community oriented approach to innovation by enabling solutions through advanced tinkering
  • Offer opportunities to innovators to ideate in areas of societal importance
  • Capacity building of communities in evolving technologies and taking their solutions from ideation to prototype.
  • Promoting design thinking process to spur innovation
  • Providing a framework to engage local industries to facilitate offering of innovative solutions in their products, services and processes
  • Public private Partnership (PPP) mode to ensure financial sustainability and participationof central agencies, PSUs etc. to mobilize resources for running the program
  • Offer an opportunity for everyone to innovate, ideate and design impactful solutions, irrespective of their age.
  • One of the unique feature of this program wherein talented students and youth of ITI and Diploma will be offered opportunity to display their and build innovative solutions through ACIC.
  • The program will offer a big leapfrog jump towards establishing Indian for further scale up the ranking in Global Innovation Index.

The Vice-Chairman of the NITI Aayog Rajiv Kumar and CEO of the Aayog Amitabh Kant also spoke on the occasion.

A new logo, posters, brochure and video, AICC website, and application portal were also launched on the occasion.

Innovate to turn biomass into energy: Pradhan

Innovate to turn biomass into energy: Pradhan

Dharmendra Pradhan

The minister says 600 MMT of non-fossilized biomass could be converted to energy.

Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas & Steel Dharmendra Pradhan has said that India produces approximately 600 MMT of non-fossilized biomass through farm waste, as per a Press Information Bureau release. This, if converted to energy, can help usher prosperity in rural economy, promote a sustainable energy and make our Annadatas (foodgrains providers), our Urjadatas (energy providers), in line with PM’s vision of Waste to Wealth creation.

Pradhan was speaking at the launch of Atal Community Innovation Centre (ACIC) in New Delhi, which has been set up to encourage the spirit of innovation at the community level across the country.

Noting that this was a CSR initiative in true sense, Pradhan expressed full support for the culture of innovation in the country and assured that the public sector undertakings from steel and petroleum sectors will provide support and hand-holding in this innovation mission. “I have asked Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) to support this initiative, I also request NITI Aayog & AIM to innovate ACICs to help in finding innovative solutions to extract consumable energy from Biomass available in the country”, the minister said. He added that unique and incentivized solutions offered by ACICs will encourage students, researchers and other individuals/group of individuals to ideate and design novel solutions. ACICs will also connect innovative thinkers to our market and mainstream economy.

India holds energy talks with Niger, Togo, and Tonga

India holds energy talks with Niger, Togo, and Tonga

Amina Moumouni, the Minister of Energy, Niger.

Marc Dederiwe Ably- Bidamon, Minister of Energy and Mines, Togo.

Union Minister of State for Power and New & Renewable Energy (IC) and Skill Development & Entrepreneurship RK Singh held bilateral meetings with Energy Ministers of Niger, Togo, and Tonga on 30 July. The bilateral talks were held with Amina Moumouni, the Minister of Energy, Niger; Marc Dederiwe Ably- Bidamon, Minister of Energy and Mines, Togo and Poasi Mataele Tei, Minister of Energy, Tonga in New Delhi, a PIB release said.

Poasi Mataele Tei, Minister of Energy, Tonga.

The meetings were held on the sidelines of first International Solar Alliance (ISA) Standing Committee Meeting in New Delhi. During the meetings, the Minister discussed various issues pertaining to ISA and areas of bilateral cooperation between India and these countries in Energy sector.

The ISA is an alliance of more than 122 countries headquartered in India. As the largest grouping of countries after the United Nations, ISA’s objective is to leverage solar energy in an efficient manner in order to reduce dependence on fossil fuels. As per the International Solar Alliance (ISA), it is conceived as a coalition of solar resource rich countries to address their special energy needs and provide a platform to collaborate on addressing the identified gaps through a common, agreed approach. The initiative was first proposed by India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2015.

 

Govt mulls waterways for the Northeast region

Govt mulls waterways for the Northeast region

(Representative image)

The Ministry of Shipping is keen to start inland waterways navigation and passenger transportation in the rivers in the North Eastern states of the country. Mansukh Mandaviya, Minister of State (Independent Charge) of Shipping and MoS, C&F has said that the public sector company Water and Power Consultancy Services Limited (WAPCOS) is preparing a model detailed project report (DPR) for implementing projects for running low-cost ferry services in the inland waterways in these states. This model DPR can be adopted for quick implementation by the Inland Waterways Authority of India in consultation with the different state governments in the region.

As per a PIB release, Mandaviya also said that inland waterways transport can be a game changer for the North Eastern states as land routes here are often long, circuitous and time consuming due to the difficult terrain. Besides bringing ease of movement, the waterways projects will also help generate employment locally, he said.

It is noteworthy that after the passing of the 2016 National Waterways Act, India has made significant progress in developing new waterways. When it comes to the Northeast, waterway navigation could help cut distances as well as the carbon footprint in the region by several notches and hence may be seen as a positive for the environment. Given the intent to focus on low-cost ferry services, the impact on river ecology may also be designed to be minimum.

PM lays stress on balancing development and environment as tiger count nears 3,000

PM lays stress on balancing development and environment as tiger count nears 3,000

royal bengal tiger

A Royal Bengal tiger in Kanha National Park, Madhya Pradesh, India. (Source: Wikipedia)

On the occasion of Global Tiger Day today, Prime Minister Narendra Modi released the results of the fourth cycle of All India Tiger Estimation – 2018, at Lok Kalyan Marg in New Delhi. The count of tigers in India, has risen to 2,967, in 2018, according to this survey.

Speaking on the occasion, the Prime Minister described this as a historic achievement for India, and reaffirmed India’s commitment towards protecting the tiger. The Prime Minister appreciated the speed and dedication with which various stakeholders worked to achieve this. He described it as one of the finest examples of Sankalp Se Siddhi. Once the people of India decide to do something, there is no force that can prevent them from getting the desired results, he declared.

The Prime Minister said that with almost 3000 tigers, India is today among the biggest and most secure habitats.

Prime Minister asserted that the way ahead is “collectiveness” instead of “selectiveness.” He said that a broad-based and holistic look is essential for environmental conservation. He said, it is possible to strike a healthy balance between development and environment. “In our policies, in our economics, we have to change the conversation about conservation,” he added.

India will build more homes for our citizens and that the same time create quality habitats for animals. India will have a vibrant marine economy and a healthier marine ecology. This balance is what will contribute to a strong and inclusive India, the Prime Minister asserted.

He expressed confidence that India will prosper both economically and environmentally; India will build more roads and India will have cleaner rivers; India will have better train connectivity and also greater tree coverage.

He said that in the last five years, while work has proceeded at a fast pace for next-generation infrastructure, the forest cover in the country has also grown. There has also been an increase in the “protected areas.” In 2014, there were 692 protected areas, which increased to more than 860 in 2019. The “Community Reserves” have also grown from 43, in 2014, to more than 100 now.

The Union Minister for Environment, Forests and Climate Change, Prakash Javdekar; the Union Minister of State for Environment, Forests and Climate Change, Babul Supriyo; and the Secretary, Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, C.K. Mishra, were present on the occasion.

News Source: Press Information Bureau 

Pix Source: Wikipedia (see attribution)

Mega capacity building program launched for sustainable rural water supply and sanitation

Mega capacity building program launched for sustainable rural water supply and sanitation

water supply

The program aims to improve rural water supply and sanitation. (Representative image.)

The Union Minister of Jal Shakti, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, launched the capacity strengthening initiative of the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation (DDWS), Ministry of Jal Shakti, in Ranchi, Jharkhand on 27 July. He was joined at the event by the Minister of State for the Ministry of Jal Shakti, Rattan Lal Kataria, Chief Minister of Jharkhand, Raghubar Das, and Minister of the Drinking Water and Sanitation,Government of Jharkhand, Ramchandra Sahis. This initiative will create a pool of 2,800 field trainers in its initial trainings, who will reach out to around 2.5 lakh Gram Panchayats across the country.

The initiative seeks to ensure the sustainability of open defecation free (ODF) villages created under the Swachh Bharat Mission in the long term and enable field trainers and members of Panchayat Raj Institutions (PRIs)  to create capacity to manage solid and liquid wastes as well as improve access to safe and adequate drinking water supply.

Addressing more than 6,000 Mukhiyas (i.e., panchayat heads), Jal Sahiyas, Swachhagrahis and others present on the occasion, Shekhawat emphasized the need for people’s participation highlighting that it is now time to turn the “jal ka andolan” into “jan ka andolan”to avert the impending water crisis. He appreciated the role of people who has committed themselves towards the cause of the Swachh Bharat Mission. Because of their efforts, in ODF and sanitized villages lakhs of lives have been saved, he added. He urged the people to re-energize their efforts for enabling sustained safe sanitation practices and expanding their efforts towards the provision of piped water supply to every household.

The Minister of State, Ministry of Jal Shakti, Rattan Lal Kataria also appreciated the role played by the various stakeholders in making Jharkhand State ODF and reiterated that the country is on track to achieve an ODF India by 2nd October 2019, on the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.

Addressing the gathering, Secretary, DDWS, Parameswaran Iyer shared the details of the capacity building training program. He shared that by January 2020, four Field Trainers (FTs) from each district will be trained through five-day Training of Trainers (ToTs) organized by the DDWS. The FTs would then train Sarpanchs, village secretaries and Swachhagrahis in their districts through a 3-day field training supported by the states and the districts, completing the entire exercise by March 2020.

During the event, a booklet and a film on the Jharkhand State Government’s Menstrual Hygiene Management Campaign – ‘Chuppi Todo-Swasth Raho’ Abhiyan were released while grassroots functionaries shared their experiences of being a part of the Swachh Bharat Mission (Grameen). This was followed by an award ceremony recognizing the outstanding contributions in the field of sanitation.

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