India's prime minister wants everyone to tell their friends about this app

After creating a cash vacuum in the country, India's prime minister wants citizens to give digital payment solutions a try. And he needs the help of the countrymen for that.

On Sunday, Narendra Modi appealed to all the residents of India to promote BHIM, a mobile payments app that his government launched in December last year. Modi is urging every Indian to spread the word to their friends, and more.

"I appeal to the people that each of us should teach at least 125 persons about downloading BHIM App and procedure of making transactions through it,” he said in his monthly radio podcast.

The BHIM (Bharat Interface for Money) app works on top of the country's UPI mobile banking platform and uses a mobile number as the payment address. The app, which has a very straight forward user interface, is positioned as a substitute for plastic cards and point-of-sale terminals. 

At the time of the launch, Modi said BHIM is destined to change how Indians pay for their daily chores. "BHIM app will revolutionize India and force people worldwide to take notice," he had said. 

In the weeks since, the government has been rewarding select BHIM users. "I urge my countrymen, especially youth of our country and those who have won prizes, to become ambassadors of these schemes,” said Prime Minister Modi in his monthly radio programme Mann Ki Baat.

India invalidated much of its cash late last year. In the aftermath, millions of people have spent hours outside banks and ATMs in dim hope of getting some newly issued cash. Amid all of this, many Indians have embraced mobile payment solutions for the first time in their lives.

The largest local mobile wallet app Paytm announced this morning that it has hit 200 million wallet users. Paytm recently claimed that its app was handling more transactions than all the credit and debit cards in the country combined.