Mobile wallet company MobiKwik witnessed an over 40 percent increase in app downloads in less than 18 hours of the demonetisation of the Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes.

Additionally, user traffic and merchant queries went up by 200 per cent among its over 35 million users, MobiKwik said.

This has prompted the mobile wallet company to revise its business targets to now achieving a gross merchandise value of $ 10 billion by 2017.

Upasana Taku, Co-Founder, MobiKwik said : "With this (demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes) policy change, we expect a 10X impact--we expect to easily hit $ 10 billion in payments volume by 2017. We were earlier trending to process $ 1 billion payments by 2017".

She said that Tuesday was a landmark day for the digital payments industry. " Given the bold steps by the Government, the industry is poised to become one of the largest contributors to the Indian economy and drive a cashless revolution", Taku added.

Srivats.kr@thehindu.co.in