Spice Money: Industry Monitoring 12 February 2019
- Priyanka Kanodia
- Feb 12, 2019
- 5 min read
Spice Money
Competitors
Fintech Firm PayNearby and Be-Bound partner to enable financial transactions in areas with limited or no data connectivity
Publication- Tech Story
Edition- Online
Date- 12 February, 2019
Hyperlocal FinTech Network PayNearby has partnered with Be-Bound, to make digital financial transactions possible in more places in rural India using Be-Bound’s patented Augmented Connectivity technology. This partnership will facilitate enhanced connectivity to PayNearby retailers, who are facing challenges due to the unstable data connectivity while serving customers with digital financial services in low network areas.
With Augmented Connectivity, PayNearby retailer app will work even in the absence of data coverage. Augmented Connectivity enables Android apps to work on any network, even without internet. Data is compressed so that apps can work even on the SMS network, so anywhere a text can be sent, apps have full functionality. With this collaboration, PayNearby retailers will now be able to serve the end customers in a more simple, efficient and connected manner.
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Industry News
Advantage UPI as eMerchants get a handle on Sarkari Pay
Publication- The Economic Times
Edition- Online
Date- 12 February, 2019
Instant inter-bank payment mechanism Unified Payments Interface (UPI) seems to be making big strides with a number of marque internet merchants like Amazon Pay, Ola, Uber and Samsung Pay issuing their own UPI handles. Amazon India, which had been testing its UPI payment product, has gone live recently in partnership with private sector lender Axis Bank and is issuing @apl handles to its users. ET had first written in its January 9 edition that Amazon had started testing its UPI product within closed user groups. Industry sources said Amazon’s UPI payments plan, which was stuck last year because of issues around data localisation, has managed to adhere to the RBI diktat to go live. Sources said that the company is issuing UPI handles only to Android users and not more than 30% of the company’s user base has the option available.
Two of the largest cab aggregating companies, Ola and Uber, started issuing their own UPI handles in partnership with Axis Bank. Ola is issuing @axisgo and Uber is issuing @axisbank handles. “Axis Bank has invested in creating a strong technology platform and developed friendly Pratik Bhakta 1 Comments Save APIs to enable its partners and startups to access the UPI functionalities on their mobile apps in a simple and secure manner,” said Sanjeev Moghe, executive vice-president and head, cards and merchant acquiring business at Axis Bank. In its latest disclosures, the company said that in the third quarter of the current financial year, it processed over 250 million UPI transactions worth Rs 23,699 crore. Emails sent to Amazon, Ola and Uber for comments went unanswered till the time of going to press.
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Paytm-led UPI transactions outnumber Google Pay, PhonePe
Publication- Times Now News
Edition- Online
Date- 12 February, 2019
The volume of digital transactions in India has grown multifold after the large-scale demonetisation exercise in 2016. Now, there are a number of modes for digital transactions including mobile wallets (Paytm, PhonePe, MobiKwik, etc), Payments banks (Paytm, Airtel, Jio, Aditya Birla and others), traditional modes such as NEFT, RTGS, IMPS, other mobile wallets such as Ola Money, Amazon Pay etc. The inclination of people towards online transactions is largely due to the ease of settlement. Paytm, the homegrown mobile wallet and e-commerce firm led by Vijay Shekhar Sharma, has topped the UPI transaction count through its interface in the month of January 2019, leaving behind the similar applications such as Google Pay and PhonePe, ET said in a report citing unidentified people with knowledge of the matter.
Unified Payments Interface (UPI) transactions have been rising day after day due to the ease of transferring money in real-time from one bank account to another bank account. Paytm-led UPI transactions in January 2019 were at 221 million whereas UPI transactions via Google Pay and PhonePe stood at 220 million, respectively, ET reported mentioning the same people cited above. According to the newspaper report, a total of about 672 million UPI transactions were recorded in January as compared to 620 million in December, out of which, UPI transactions through the government-backed Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM) stood at 14 million as compared to 17 million in December 2018.
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Cashfree Launches Virtual UPI IDs, Automated UPI Transfers For Businesses
Publication- Express Computer
Edition- Online
Date- 12 February, 2019
Bengaluru based payments technology company, Cashfree has launched Virtual UPI IDs, for automated reconciliations of UPI transfers for businesses. Cashfree is the first payment technology company to launch this innovative feature for UPI Payments. Virtual UPI IDs are like any other UPI VPA (Virtual payment address) that a user defines at the time of registration on a UPI app. Using Cashfree API, businesses can generate these UPI IDs in bulk against each customer or invoice. When the payment is received on these IDs, businesses know exactly who paid and for what. Business’s own accounting software can be hooked to Cashfree’s system for automated updates on incoming payments. Thereby, removing the time taking the process of manual reconciliation and delay in payment acknowledgment.
A classic example can be a share brokerage firm receiving deposits from clients for purchase of securities. In such a case, the share broker can generate a unique UPI ID for each client and share the ID with them. When payment is received, the service provider gets notified and payment is mapped against the client. Akash Sinha, the co-founder of Cashfree, said “In the last 2 years, 3 million virtual bank accounts have been generated using Cashfree AutoCollect. With the growth of UPI as a preferred way to pay, we believe it is the right time to enable AutoCollect for UPI, along with NEFT/IMPS/RTGS and cheque payments. Until now, UPI has been used mostly for small ticket size transactions. With the provision of automated reconciliation through virtual UPI IDs, a growing number of business will start to offer UPI payment option.”
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Paytm Beats Google Pay, PhonePe In UPI Transactions; BHIM App Is Out Of The Race Now
Publication- Trak
Edition- Online
Date- 12 February, 2019
UPI, Unified Payments Interface is what is causing all the rage now in the banking world. In a surprisingly short while, UPI has managed to top the charts and seems quite future-proof. And the most used platform for UPI payments is Paytm, followed by Google Pay and PhonePe. UPI also recorded a huge record of Rs. 75000 Crore transactions and Paytm has previously topped the list of UPI payment platforms and still manages to be #1. The competition is fierce and all three platforms are neck and neck and fighting for the position. In January, Paytm’s numbers were more than 221 million transactions whereas PhonePe and Google Pay were at about 220 million transactions. Additionally, PhonePe crossed 225 million transactions, but not specifically to UPI, but on all payment modes. They announced a total transaction amount if Rs. 30000 Crore in January.
In November 2018, Paytm reached the 100 crore mark for the first time ever.
In total, UPI has clocked around 670 million transactions in December which went up to 672 million transactions in January. Also, P2P (peer to peer) transactions have seen a boost and continue to be scale heights. A senior banker revealed in secrecy that the total number of merchant transactions has not crossed 100-120 million per month.
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How To File A Complaint With The Digital Payments Ombudsman?
Publication- Good Returns
Edition- Online
Date- 12 February, 2019
You can now file a complaint against digital payment service providers like prepaid payments instruments, e-wallets, etc with ombudsman offices in 21 locations across 19 cities. At end of January, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) launched the Ombudsman Scheme for Digital Transactions (OSDT).
Note that the complaint has to be about a service provided by the digital payments company and not related to the bank account linked to it. The grievances related to banking services will have to be submitted to the banking ombudsman.
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