Uber is going old school in case of payment option in India. The on demand taxi hailing service is testing a cash payment for cabs in Hyderabad.
Uber will now allow users to pay for the cab service with cash as against the cashless (credit or debit card ) service it usually offers. The cash payment service is being tested as a pilot program in Hyderabad. Users using the Uber app in Hyderabad will see a CASH option in the Payment section in the top left corner. They will need to select this before they request a ride. Cash payments will need to be made in full and cannot be combined with balance in the PayTM account linked to Uber.
The latest move comes from Uber after launching uberAUTO service last month that allowed users to pay with cash. Uber is investing heavily in India, the company’s second-largest market by users and faces tough competition from Ola which supports cash payments and is present in 40 cities whereas Ola is present in only 11.
Uber described its cash move as an “experiment” to be tested on a small segment of users in Hyderabad. The cash option will be rolled out gradually over the next few days. Just yesterday Uber was stated to be looking forward to secure $1.5 billion in latest of funding.