Now JioMoney can be used for Sodexo Meal Payments

The digital wallet of Reliance Jio, JioMoney has entered into a partnership agreement with Sodexo company in which now Sodexo customers can use JioMoney to pay for services. Sodexo is a famous meal benefits firm with up to 3 million daily users. This covers the non-digital standalone food stores on the digital payments ecosystem, where Sodexo Meal Cards will be accepted via the JioMoney application.

In the press release by Reliance Jio, the company said " Reliance Jio and Sodexo, the leader in Employee Benefits today announced the partnership to accelerate India’s digital transformation. Jio and Sodexo will leverage complementary strengths and offerings to create an enriched digital life ecosystem for Indians.

JioMoney, the PPI wallet offered by Jio Payments Bank Ltd., has enabled integration of Sodexo Meal Cards with a user’s JioMoney account to allow mobile-based payments via Sodexo Meal Card. The partnership will enable thousands of Sodexo Merchants like grocery shops, kiranas, restaurants and cafes across the country, to accept digital payments via Sodexo".

Speaking on the association, Anirban S Mukherjee, Business Head, JioMoney said, “Jio’s partnership with Sodexo will further enhance Jio’s endeavor to deliver the benefits of evolving digital technologies to every Indian and allow them to live Digital Life to the fullest. The integration will bring convenience and new digital transaction options for both JioMoney and Sodexo users in India. Going forward both brands will leverage core strengths, develop synergies and expand their reach and presence in India’s growing digital ecosystem.”

Stephane Michelin, CEO Sodexo Benefits and Rewards Services India said, “At Sodexo, we constantly strive to enhance the consumer experience by expanding the ways to use the Sodexo Meal card within our proprietary network. Our endeavor has been to improve the retail experience for our 3 million daily users. With this partnership, JioMoney MPOS system will help segregate the food & non – food items among standalone, smaller merchants, which will further strengthen Sodexo’s position as a compliant meal benefit solution in the country.”

 “We believe that the need is to expand the network of acceptance of our products and services. On the B2B front, we are tied-up with 11,000 corporates in India,” he added.

In April, Reliance Industries' payments bank venture Jio Payments Bank started commercial operations from Tuesday, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in a statement.

Sodexo’s proprietary meal benefit solution, Sodexo Meal Pass can be linked to the JioMoney App for making quick payments on-the-go, a Jio release today said.

Consumers no longer have to carry the Sodexo’s physical card for the purchase of food and non-alcoholic beverages. They can simply add the Sodexo Meal Card balance to the JioMoney app and start transacting on-the-go. Jio and Sodexo will continue to work together to accelerate adoption of services offered by both the brands.

The solution has already been launched in Mumbai and the consumer response has been excellent. The JioMoney solution will be enabled at all Sodexo accepting merchants nationally over a period of time. This partnership between JioMoney and Sodexo, both being leaders in their respective spaces brings high levels of domain expertise will bring about a radical change in the payments landscape across the country.

Now Jio Laptops with SIM connectivity

Reliance Jio company have worked out a new Idea in specially designed laptops with Jio SIM connectivity. Already, Jio has disrupted the market with cheaper rates and world's cheapest feature phone with 4G connectivity in the form of JioPhones.

To materialise this innovative concept, Jio is said to be in talks with the expert chip maker Qualcomm could deliver a laptop that has a provision to insert a SIM card and convert it into a cellular-connected device. The device could come with Windows 10 pre-loaded. Qualcomm already has an ongoing association with Reliance Jio and Reliance Retail. The chip maker has confirmed the development, though Reliance Jio is yet to officially issue any confirmation.

If Jio spearhead this project into reality, then you have considerable market for cheaper laptops which can also support 4G directly. Another advantage would be that customers would have to stick with the same mobile operator unless TRAI makes rules for MPN option in these laptops also.

The most beneficial feature of this project is in the field of education and rural development. Even today, very few people in rural areas own a laptop of any kind. If Jio launches this project with much affordable prices, even rural students and workers can dream of owning a laptop. In India, on an average 5 million laptops are sold every year. You can imaging the limited reach and affordability of laptops and scope for potential laptop markets to be acquired.

It is also said that Qualcomm, in turn, is reported to be engaging the Indian company Smartron that specialises in Internet of Things (IoT) to develop laptops that can carry their Snapdragon 835 processor. That would pave the way for the SIM card to be inserted and a smartphone cum laptop can be made available to the users.

How Jio Saves 60,000 Crores Per Year for India?

In a research report from Institute for Competitiveness (IFC), the Indian citizens have saved at least 60,000 crores in a year after Reliance Jio started its services. Jio was officially launched in September 2016 and was able to quickly attract a huge customer base with its mind-blowing free and cheap offers.

One can understand the level of impact by looking at the fact that after Jio started its services, the cost of 1GB high-speed data has dropped by whopping 96% from Rs 152 to Rs 6. This has led the Indian economy save at least 60,000 Crore INR in annual savings for consumers and will expand India's per capita GDP by about 5.65 per cent, said the report.

Jio has made data accessible and affordable, with average prices per GB dropping drastically, bringing the internet within the reach of a previously inaccessible group of the Indian population. Such a drastic reduction in data prices has also allowed newer segments of society to use and experience it for the first time.

"As per our calculations, even the most conservative estimate shows that due to Jio's entry, the annual financial savings to the consumers would be to the tune of USD 10 billion," said the report by Institute for Competitiveness(IFC). It said econometric analysis shows that through widespread network effects, Jio's entry would enhance India's GDP by about 5.65 per cent, if everything else in the economy remains constant.

The effect on GDP growth due to higher Internet penetration will not just be a contribution of the telecom sector but also the various externalises that arise out of the internet economy, it said. IFC analysed Jio's entry to measure the impact of internet penetration on economic growth. The model used data from 18 states from 2004-14 and showed that a 10 per cent increase in internet penetration led to per capita GDP rising by 3.9 per cent, if all else remains constant.

"Since Jio's entry into the Indian telecom markets on September 2016, the face of the industry has not remained the same. It changed the basis of competition by offering free lifetime calling to its consumers in an industry that derived 75 per cent of its revenue from voice," the report said. Within six months of Jio's launch, India became the highest mobile data user in the world consuming over 1 billion GB data every month as compared to 200 million GB earlier.

At the end of 2017, Jio users consumed almost 10 GB data, 700 minutes of voice and 134 hours of video every month on an average. "Data usage in the country has soared. India is now only second to China in terms of app downloads. Such levels of digital consumption were unprecedented a year-and-a-half ago," it said.

Click Here to Read our earlier post about Jio Impacts.