The Essar Group’s township at Hazira in Surat district of Gujarat has become India’s first private sector township to go cashless.
For this purpose, the residents of Nand Niketan township have been provided with The Mobile Wallet (TMW) that has seen more than 12,000 app downloads since the launch recently. Over 8,000 TMW-RBL Bank prepaid cards have been issued to the residents, an Essar spokesman said here on Friday.
On an average, Rs 2 lakh worth of digital transactions and 1,000 daily transactions are executed every day using the TMW app. All 40 merchants at the township accept payments through the TMW app and TMW-RBL Bank prepaid card.
TMW is a Mumbai-based financial technology company, whose wallet is powered by RBL Bank Ltd.
The pilot project, started in December 2016, involved adoption of TMW’s twin offering — the smartphone-based TMW app and the Mastercard-enabled TMW and RBL Bank co-branded prepaid card, which has almost universal acceptance at all outlets and billers that accept Mastercard in India.
Daily transactions executed this cashless way include mobile recharges, payments made for groceries and daily needs, and settling of restaurant bills. Besides, users are also making other forms of digital payments through the TMW-RBL Bank prepaid card, other debit/credit cards or e-wallet apps, said Rishi Kalantri, Head–Cashless Townships, TMW.
Ralph Sunil, VP-Administration & CSR, Essar Steel, said all Essar employees now get a nominal part of their salary as a credit into their TMW wallets. This has benefitted the company’s contract labourers as well, including those having no bank accounts.