Mi Pay, and Mi Credit are no more in operation as Xiaomi decides to focus on its core business services.
Sudden discontinuation of Mi Pay and Mi Credit by Xiaomi in India has caused trouble to its users.
Vanshika Agarwal, an active user of Mi Pay, said, “I was using Mi Pay for more than a year now. Suddenly one day I wasn’t able to pay through Mi Pay. Later I got to know that Xiaomi has discontinued its financial services in India. Being such a big company, they could have taken the courtesy to inform their users about the shutdown.” She added, “Mobile payment apps are directly linked to our bank accounts, for instance, I thought there might be some technical issue I kept trying to use the app but wasn’t able to. I was a bit scared cause of the same. ”
Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi recently removed Mi Pay and Mi Credit from the local play store and its own app store. National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has also removed Mi Pay from its list of approved Unified Payment Interface (UPI) apps. Mi Pay was listed in 2018 in NPCI’s list. Mi Pay lets its users transfer funds, and make payments for several bills using the UPI framework.
Xiaomi spokesperson said in an article, “As part of the annual strategic assessment activity and as a response to enhanced focus on our core business services, we closed the Mi Financial Services. In a short span of four years, we were able to connect and support thousands of customers.” He added, “We are working with our partners and supporting our consumers during this process. We will continue to bring [the] latest technology and innovation for all with our products and services in the future.”
Rahul (name changed), business analyst said, “Xiaomi was aiming to become a big fintech player and found India as a good opportunity. However, now it can be said that due to India’s central bank’s stringent rules they discontinued Mi Pay and Mi Credit.”
Mi Pay touched 20 million registered users within a year of its launch. The service had 50 million registered users in India and has been pre-installed on phones sold by the company.
Shreya, another user of Mi Pay, said, “I liked the interface of Mi Pay a lot. They had great cashback offers and deals, don’t know why they have discontinued it. It was a very abrupt shutdown, we didn’t get any prior information about it.”
According to a source from Paytm, “As Xiaomi has discontinued its financial services in India, other players will capture the share of the market retreated by Mi Pay. New users are joining every day, and mobile payment apps are facing a cut-throat competition between them.”
An article reported that a $1 trillion opportunity has been retreated as Xiaomi removed its Mi Pay as well as Mi Credit apps from the Google Play Store along with its own app store in India
Rahul added, “A greater part of revenue for Mi comes from selling smartphones. Yet they are losing huge potential in the fintech industry which has seen good growth in funding. So in the future, Mi needs to come up with a new strategy for the Indian market.”
