The cash crunch in India – because of low caps on withdrawals from ATMs and banks – keeps tripping me up. The other day at a kebab joint, my digital wallet payment failed because of either a network or server problem. The restaurant had no card swipe machine either, and I had too little cash. Others have had more serious problems than going without kebabs. But it turns out there’s a tech solution for all these situations. Wallets could use radio signals from smartphones to transmit payments even when mobile and internet networks are unavailable. A new startup, Klozest, based in the Bay Area and Bangalore, is in talks with leading wallets in India to integrate its SDK (software development kit) into their apps to enable such payments. It requires no internet, or bluetooth, or the NFC chips used by Apple Pay. Read more: techinasia.com
