The mobile taxi company has expanded its cash payment trial that started two months ago to four more cities: Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Jaipur and Kochi.
The original test programme was initiated in Hyderabad in May and was successful enough for Uber to begin a roll-out on a larger scale.
In order to pay for an Uber by cash, the rider must select the CASH option before actually booking a taxi. An Uber account is still required even though no mobile payments are being made.
Uber is also preventing any split ways of paying by saying that “You will not be able to make part payments on cash trips with your Paytm wallet and vice versa”.
The company originally trialled cash as a way of appealing to a more diverse amount of people, particularly in India’s smaller cities where the presence of credit or debit cards is limited.
However, more recently Uber has had another incentive to trial alternative payment methods to the traditional mobile solution.
In August 2014, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) enforced a piece of legislation that pressed international e-commerce firms to process credit card payments via an Indian bank, meaning companies such as Uber now had to use a two-step credit card verification procedure for processing payments.
The cash trial can therefore be seen as a back-up option should any new legislation force the company to restructure its payment solutions.
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