It’s an idea that’s going to make a lot of noise in the online payments world. Paytm is going to soon launch “Sound Pay”, a feature that will allow money transfers using ultrasonic sound waves.
Customers will be able to make payments at stores by holding their phones next to the store owners’. “Consumers will soon have the option of clicking the ‘sound pay’ icon in the Paytm app,” said Nitin Misra, head of products at Paytm. “It will transmit ultrasonic sound at a certain frequency and it carries data. The data will include how much to pay and the customers credentials.”
Once the consumer’s app transmits data, the seller’s app checks whether there is enough money in the Paytm wallet before the transaction is completed. Paytm is currently conducting trials of this service. If successful, the system could be implemented in a couple of months at convenience stores.
While Paytm is the first mobile wallet to introduce this feature, it is not a completely new concept. Paytm’s biggest investor Alibaba’s wallet, AliPay had introduced sound based mobile payments back in 2013. Also, using sound waves to transfer information has been around for a while. In 2015, Google has launched a chrome extension called Google Tone that used audible sounds to transfer files between 2 computers.
Paytm is currently the biggest digital wallet in India with 110 million subscribers.