Hike Messenger launches Hike 5.0 with Hike Wallet

Hike Messenger recently announced the launch of Hike 5.0, an all-new visually delightful, unique, social experience. Hike 5.0 reinforces Hike’s vision of simplifying how people connect with others and changes the way they interact with content and services on mobile.

“Over the last 6 months, we’ve been working to bring a brand new experience to our users with one question in mind – How do we take all the things that users love about Hike and make it even better? Hike 5.0 is our most ambitious step in that direction till date.” said Kavin Bharti Mittal, Founder and CEO, Hike Messenger.

Immediately on opening Hike 5.0, one can notice the new, slick look and feel. Hike has placed a large emphasis on personalisation right up front with ‘App Themes’. Users can now choose from over 11 themes that are a combination of a colour and pattern. Elements across the app reflect this theme once chosen. From the original Hike Blue to Hot Pink, Hike’s got every shape of you covered.

If you’re staying up late and chatting in the darkness of your bedroom, not to worry, Hike’s dedicated a theme just for that called ‘Night’ theme. Night, the only dark theme amongst the 11, is a saviour for users who want to message in the dark. It also saves battery at night as it reduces the glare coming off the screen. If you choose, Hike can automatically turn on Night theme every night at 8pm so that you’re ready for those late night chats with your friends.

A nifty addition to Hike 5.0 is the all new ‘Magic Selfie’ feature. With just a tap, using Machine Learning techniques, Hike’s camera now smoothens your skin and makes it radiant from any angle, making every single picture of yours count.

On popular demand, Hike has also brought back Timeline in its original form. In addition to Stories on Hike where users can post photos that disappear in 24 hours, users can now post text, photos and videos on their Timeline where memories stay forever. Hike is now also an all in one scrap book of your life with your close friends.

The biggest update of Hike 5.0 is Hike Wallet, the easiest and most fun way to send and receive money.

There are 3 main aspects of Hike Wallet:

Free and instant money transfer:

1. Bank-to-bank via UPI: With Unified Payments Interface (UPI) support enabled in Hike5.0, users can now do free and instant bank-to-bank transfers with their friends. What’s exciting is that this works even if their friends aren't on Hike.
2. Wallet to Wallet: For those who don’t actively use a bank account, Hike still allows you to send and receive money with your friends through the Wallet.

Blue Packets: A Blue Packet is simply a beautifully designed envelope that users can insert money into and send to their friends. Users can choose from over 10 different beautifully crafted envelopes and also add a personalised message to it to celebrate those special occasions. A Blue Packet can be sent to an individual or even a group of friends. If you give Blue Packets to a group of your friends, you can have a little fun and select how many people in the group should get it. It works on a first come first serve basis and a Blue Packet when sent expires in 24 hours!

Recharge: With Hike 5.0, users can now recharge their phones and pay their postpaid bill right from inside Hike. This removes the need to have one more app just for paying mobile bills, thereby saving space on their phone and removing the need for them to add yet another app.

With more than 100 million registered users currently on Hike Messenger, this launch makes Hike the largest UPI based platform in India overnight. Yes Bank is the banking partner enabling Hike to launch UPI and the Wallet. UPI, stands for Unified Payments Interface, launched by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) in August last year to accelerate the adoption of digital payments in the country.

Kavin Bharti Mittal, Founder and CEO, Hike Messenger said, “Hike 5.0 is the biggest update we’ve released in the history of Hike. We’ve worked closely with over 100 of our top hikers to build 5.0. It’s been built by our users for our users. With App themes, Night theme and Magic Selfie Hike 5.0 is packed with some incredibly personal touches that are meant to delight our users. With Hike 5.0 you can personalize your Hike world.”

Earlier as Paytm was free but now it is charging some percent when money is transferred from wallet to bank same as Hike is not charging anything and transactions are free when it is asked are you planning for the same in future Kavin Bharti Mittal said to PC Quest, “We are not planning anything right now We are totally focusing on Blue packets and B2B”

With the launch of Hike 5.0, Hike has also reduced the app size to just 25MB despite adding all these features and has also added 128-bit SSL encryption that ensures that communication across the air and wire networks, is completely encrypted.