Spice Money: Industry Monitoring 13 March 2019
- Priyanka Kanodia
- Mar 18, 2019
- 5 min read
Spice Money
Competitors
Bandhan's 14.9% stake to HDFC will test RBI 2016 guidelines
Publication- The Economic Times
Edition- Online
Date- 13 March, 2019
The Bandhan Bank NSE -0.73 % 's proposed 14.9 per cent stake allotment to HDFC for merging Gruh Finance NSE -1.48 % will test the Reserve Bank of India's regulations of 2016 on shareholding in private sector banks. Gruh Finance, the affordable housing finance NSE 0.06 % arm of HDFC, was taken over in January by Kolkata based Bandhan Bank in a share swap deal. "RBI's approval had been sought for allotment of 14.9 per cent stake of Bandhan Bank to HDFC post-merger. Though there is no apparent regulatory hurdle in this regard, this is the first case going through the RBI regulations of 2016," sources involved in the deal told PTI. The deal will allow Bandhan Bank's promoter Bandhan Financial holding to come down to about 61 per cent from about 82 per cent, and HDFC to hold around 15 per cent in the merged entity from about 57 per cent in Gruh.
Meanwhile, Bandhan Bank has denied that it took control of Gruh in a costly deal. "HDFC is not going to get any board berth and controlling premium in the deal," a top Bandhan Bank source said adding that analysts are not taking these factors into account Moreover, both the companies (Bandhan Bank and Gruh Finance) are listed entities and the swap ratio was determined by exchange traded prices on which no one has any control, he said.
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https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/markets/stocks/news/bandhans-14-9-pc-stake-to-hdfc-will-test-rbi-2016-guidelines/articleshow/68379518.cms
Yatra.com up for sale? Says will review Ebix’s buyout offer as latter eyes stronghold in travel market
Publication- The Financial Express
Edition- Online
Date- 13 March, 2019
Nasdaq-listed India’s second largest online travel agency Yatra today said that it will review the proposal for its acquistion sent by global on-demand software and e-commerce services provider Ebix. The latter announced sending of a letter to Yatra’s board for the deal on Monday. This would mark one of the biggest consolidation in India’s online travel market after more than two years since market leader MakeMyTrip acquired competitor GoIbibo. The deal will also make Ebix, which has already acquired multiple travel companies, a formidable player in the online travel market. After acquiring Via.com in November 2017, Ebix acquired a range of companies in the travel market such as Mercury, Leisure Corp, Pearl International Tours & Travel, and Lawson Travel & Tours, to go deeper into the segment.
“At a macro level, this is part of Ebix’s early strategy of becoming a consolidator in various markets. The company first created dominance in money transfer market with the acquistion of digital payments company ItzCash in 2017. Then it dominated forex market as well with acquistion of Essel Forex and Weizmann Forex and acquired SL forex,” a source privy to Ebix’s growth strategy told Financial Express Online requesting anonymity.
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Industry News
FinTech lenders prefer UPI over other modes of loan payment
Publication- Money Control
Edition- Online
Date- 13 March, 2019
While it still faces version upgrade challenges, the latest version of Unified Payments Interface (UPI) has emerged as the most preferred option for loan repayment processes. This is the general sentiment of most FinTech operators that are in the business of loans, today. They are also of the opinion that having a simplified and user-friendly UPI could make the application popular enough and improve the repayment trend.
Brands like LazyPay that work with PayU are seeing a rapid growth in UPI as a preferred gateway for loan repayment. The ease of operations and helpful UI of UPI could be a big reason why digital lending FinTechs like ZestMoney too are adopting it in a big way. Loantap runs the UPI handle with Yes Bank named Loantap@yesbank and is also seeing a gradual growth in the use of UPI as the repayments gateway.
Another big reason for its increasing adoption seems to be the gamification angle offered by players like Google Pay and PhonePe for UPI transactions. For instance, Google Pay has made scratch cards popular as an interesting concept in India. By showing the ‘cashbacks’ won by consumers, payments have been made an exciting experience now. A larger number of tech-based lenders are looking to adopt UPI too, and among them is Moneytap, a Bengaluru-based startup that provides a credit line in partnership with banks and NBFCs.
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Aadhaar BHIM Transactions Fall 30% in Past 5 Months
Publication- Money Life
Edition- Online
Date- 13 March, 2019
There has been a steady decline in the number of transactions on the government-owned Aadhaar Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM) app that is based on the unified payments interface (UPI). During the past five months, retail payments of BHIM fell almost 30% to 12.83 million transactions, shows the latest data from National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). As per NPCI data, from October 2018 to February 2019, retail payments on the NPCI platform using BHIM fell 30% to 12.83 million transactions while the value, in rupee terms, also witnessed a steep fall of 31% to Rs56.24 billion.
During October 2018, the total number of retail payment transactions on the Aadhaar-BHIM were recorded at 18.27 million with a value of Rs82.06 billion, the data shows. This was the highest in both volume and value terms recorded during the first 11 months of FY18-19. As per reports, the deceleration is a result of the delay in BHIM Aadhaar PoS (point of sale) deployment and the fact that many users do not have smartphones which are essential for executing the transactions.
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Kenya's Safaricom secures deal to use M-Pesa payments on AliExpress.com
Publication- Reuters
Edition- Online
Date- 13 March, 2019
Kenya’s Safaricom said on Tuesday it had secured a deal to use its M-Pesa mobile payment service for online shopping on one of Alibaba’s platforms, part of a move to expand its most profitable product beyond Kenya. AliExpress.com, run by Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, will allow Kenyan shoppers to buy goods on the site using M-Pesa in a matter of weeks. M-Pesa was launched more than a decade ago to offer Kenyans without bank accounts a network to transfer cash via mobile phones. It now offers a range of payment services, loans and savings to more than 21 million people in Kenya and has been copied abroad.
AliExpress.com is an online shopping portal for businesses and retail customers. “As our customers get more digital, they want to shop in a more digital kind of a format, that’s why we are seeing e-commerce growing,” said Safaricom’s chief customer officer, Sylvia Mulinge.
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The companies disrupting the payments industry in major markets through digital
Publication- Business Insider India
Edition- Online
Date- 13 March, 2019
Noncash payments have been gaining popularity around the world for the last decade. And though cash isn't anywhere near dead, its global growth is slowing as consumers turn to emerging cashless alternatives. Cash As A Share Of Total Transactions In AustraliaBusiness Insider Intelligence. But there are a few key markets - Australia, Sweden, and the UK - where annual noncash payments have already surpassed traditional cash transactions altogether - and they're stong early indicators of what a truly cashless society could look like.
Why are digital payments on the rise?
The growing adoption of noncash payments is a direct result of the rise of e-commerce, but that's not the only factor. Consumers today are adaptable to disruptive technologies and are generally open to trying new types of digital payment methods.
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