December 15, 2017: Sri Lanka’s most innovative taxi-hailing service, PickMe, announced the pioneering launch of Real-Time Cashless Settlements through its popular mobile app.
Representing the world’s first ever instance of digital payment settlements being enabled via an app, the new service is considered a game changer for PickMe’s growing community of drivers, encouraging them to take cashless hires from passengers at any given time while enabling to receive the benefits of it in a few seconds.
Consequently, a PickMe driver can now complete a ride and get paid instantly, instead of waiting out a 24-hour window for the bank to process and remit payments to its driver partners. Coinciding with Sri Lanka’s rising digital economy, PickMe’s powerful new innovation is anticipated to spark a new wave of growth in cashless payments as its breakthrough model is replicated across all other mobile apps that enable payments.
According to PickMe Chairman, Ajit Gunewardene, PickMe’s latest innovation is part of an overarching goal from the home-grown ride hailing app to help steer Sri Lanka towards a vibrant digital economy.
“In the last decade, smart technologies have fundamentally changed our lives. Being consumers of technology in this digital era, we have created high expectations on how our experience should be. The rising tide of immediate payments is one aspect of this increased sophistication, which is reflected in growing consumer demand for real-time transactions. Driven partly by the ubiquity of smart technologies, this has catalyzed consumer expectation for immediacy,”
“The launch of Real-Time Cashless Settlements in our app represents another bold step forward for PickMe. As Sri Lanka’s first and most successful taxi-hailing app, our priority is to lead this fast-growing industry to new benchmarks in convenience and service delivery. Across the globe, there is rapid shift towards cashless payments. The launch of Real-Time Cashless settlements for our drivers is an innovation which we believe will help and encourage our customers and drivers to make the transition towards cashless payments, and gain all the benefits that this new payment system has to offer,” PickMe Chairman, Ajit Gunewardene explained.
PickMe’s Real-Time Cashless Settlements feature was engineered by the company’s in-house development team of multi-experienced, versatile Sri Lankans, who understand the local market exceptionally well. By aggregating these invaluable insights on local and global technology trends and integrating them through Sri Lanka’s premier retail bank Hatton National Bank PLC, this novel feature is now anticipated to serve as the first bold step by a Sri Lankan company towards integrating and refining global trends towards the advancement of Sri Lanka’s digital economy.
“We are really looking forward to the extension of real-time cashless settlements for our affiliates. Our latest innovation presents an invaluable opportunity for PickMe to help set the pace for the local industry, while also supporting the expansion of Sri Lanka’s cashless payment ecosystem into another vibrant sector of the domestic digital economy. This innovation provides compelling value to our customers and drivers, and we have full confidence that cashless payments will soon become a ubiquitous component in the PickMe business model,” PickMe Chief Executive Officer, Jiffry Zulfer stated.
As the largest organized taxi platform in Sri Lanka, with a taxi fleet of over ten thousand three-wheelers, mini cars, cars and vans, PickMe currently services the transportation needs of over one million passengers based in the Colombo, Negombo, Kalutara and Kandy regions. Adding to its portfolio of services, PickMe recently debuted its newest feature ‘PickMe VIP’, which is a fleet of chauffeur-driven luxury cars that cater to premium clients and corporates.