Walnut, India's leading personal finance management app, today announced smart features like bill split over chat and real time P2P (Peer to Peer) money transfer to bank accounts using only debit cards - eliminating the need to remember and exchange account numbers and IFSC codes.
These features are enabled in collaboration with Visa, the global leader in payments technology and ICICI Bank, India's largest private sector bank.
To facilitate P2P money transfer to eligible Visa accounts, Walnut uses Visa APIs and ICICI Bank payment gateway. While all transactions are processed through ICICI Bank, the facility allows customers to transfer funds using any bank's Visa debit cards.
These innovative features make it convenient for millions of debit card users in India to transfer money and move to cashless payments.
Amit Bhor, CEO, Walnut, added, "We have introduced Bill split and P2P money transfer in Walnut, seeing a need to manage shared expenses. Young professionals and college students travel to different cities and live with roommates and friends. Managing shared expenses and quick money transfer is a task critical for them, but it is time consuming. The new Bill split and pay features make the experience fast and simple, eliminating the friction around paying friends. As part of this collaboration with Visa and ICICI Bank, we have also innovated on a simple and secure way to pay credit card bills. By partnering with key players in the financial ecosystem such as Visa and ICICI Bank, we plan to bring more useful innovations to our 1.5M+ users."
To split an expense with friends, all a user needs to do is select the expense that is automatically tracked by Walnut, and choose friends to split with. In order to settle an expense or do a P2P money transfer, a user needs to enter his own debit card.
There is no exchange of bank account numbers/IFSC codes or mobile wallets in between. The funds are transferred securely between Visa accounts, without the need to share personal details such as bank account numbers or IFSC codes.
Users without Visa debit cards can also use the bill split & money transfer feature on Walnut. Walnut has also launched an iOS version of its app called WalnutPay, which enables users to split bills and send/receive money from friends.
Kusal Roy, Senior General Manager, ICICI Bank said, "At ICICI Bank, technology has been at the core of our strategy. We have always leveraged technology to introduce digital innovations and provide world-class banking experience to our customers. India is among the top three internet users in the world (& internet is being accessed on phones), which is resulting in exponential growth in mobile banking. It is also bringing about a shift in consumer preference wherein customers want innovative solutions on the go which is evident with the popularity of apps like "Walnut". We are keen to provide digital payment support to such players to electronify payments".
T. R. Ramachandran, Group Country Manager, India and South Asia, Visa, said, "Visa has launched Visa Developer, an open platform to enable and support our clients and partners to create innovative commerce experiences faster, and with greater flexibly. The platform provides access to Visa's APIs for a suite of Visa's payment products and services. We are excited with the opportunity we have to work with innovators such as Walnut, in their pursuit of creating new, convenient and secure payment solutions."
To see Walnut bill split & pay features in action, check the Youtube video
Download Walnut for Android from Google Play, or WalnutPay for iOS from App Store.
Disclaimer: No Business Standard Journalist was involved in creation of this content
