Spice Money Industry Monitoring 15 February 2019
- Priyanka Kanodia
- Feb 15, 2019
- 4 min read
Industry News
'Amazon Pay UPI' launched for Android users in India
Publication- The Economic Times
Edition- Online
Date- 15 February, 2019
To facilitate secure payments and financial transactions on its platform, Amazon on Thursday launched "Amazon PayUnified Payments Interface (UPI)" for Androidusers in partnership with Axis Bank to issue UPI IDs to its customers in India. UPI is an instant real-time payment system developed by National Payments Corporation of India processing interbank transactions. With this, users would be able to use their Amazon Pay UPI ID to shop on Amazon.in, make payments for their daily purchases, including recharges and bill payments, without entering bank account or debit card credentials or going through a multi-layer process to pay from their bank account, the company said in a statement.
"The launch of Amazon Pay UPI is a key milestone to help accelerate adoption of merchant payments on UPI platforms," said Vikas Bansal, Director, Amazon Pay, India. Every customer transaction on Amazon is secured through mobile device verification as well as with UPI pin. Customers could link their bank accounts and complete one time set-up process by setting up a UPI pin to make instant payments.
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Mastercard looks beyond payments space for growth in Indian markets
Publication- Business Standard
Edition- Online
Date- 15 February, 2019
Technology company Mastercard, known mainly as a card network, said it was looking beyond the payments space for growth in India. The company was focusing on identity authentication as well as distribution and technology partnerships in the country, working with merchants, companies and the government, it said. “People sometimes think of Mastercard as just payments, but we do a lot of work towards digital identity.
We are one of the top Aadhaar service providers here in India. So we help governments verify your identity,” said Ed McLaughlin, President, Operations and Technology, ...
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Debit/Credit cards outstanding cross billion mark; usage hovers around 54 per cent
Publication- The Financial Express
Edition- Online
Date- 15 February, 2019
The number of debit and credit cards outstanding in the country crossed one billion in 2018 and remained above that level throughout the second half of 2018, show data released by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Even so, there was a limited growth in the number of times these cards were used to make actual digital transactions. The volume of point-of-sale (POS) transactions as a share of total cards outstanding rose to only 54.5% in December 2018 from 47.4% in December 2017. RBI does not share data on the volume or value of card transactions made through the e-commerce channel. If e-commerce transactions were added to POS transactions, card usage figures would likely go up.
Card usage at ATMs, on the other hand, are nearly commensurate with the number of cards in the system. During the last three months of 2018, the volume of card transactions at ATMs ranged between 81% and 92% of the number of cards in circulation. This ties in with the fact that the cash in circulation (CIC) touched a new high of `20.4 lakh crore earlier this year. Experts have earlier said that the circulation of cash in the economy rises when major elections are scheduled.
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Now Paytm Payments Bank users can invest in mutual funds directly through Paytm Money
Publication- The Financial Express
Edition- Online
Date- 15 February, 2019
Users of Paytm Payments Bank will now be able to seamlessly invest in mutual funds (MF) through Paytm’s MF investments platform Paytm Money, the company said as it integrated the two financial platforms today. Paytm said the integration will aim at benefiting more than 42 million customers of its payments bank for seamless wealth management, it said in a statement. The users would now be able to make their account as the primary bank account on Paytm Money that would also be the default account for investment and redemption of their MF investments.
“This is first of many integrations we expect to bring by deeply integrating with the Paytm ecosystem. We are excited about working with the Paytm Payments Bank team to bring the convenience of investing in MF by enabling net banking and UPI for their customers,” Paytm Money’s whole-time director Pravin Jadhav said. As a one-time process, users would have to electronically verify their bank accounts before paying using Paytm Payments Bank. Post verification, users would have to enter their payments bank credentials for the bank account and validate the payment using the 4-digit passcode on the Paytm app.
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https://www.financialexpress.com/industry/sme/now-paytm-payments-bank-users-can-invest-in-mutual-funds-directly-through-paytm-money/1487783/
Insurance software firm Ebix buys majority stake in travel tech platform Zillious
Publication- VC Circle
Edition- Online
Date- 15 February, 2019
One year three months after buying Bengaluru-based online-to-offline travel agency Via.com, insurance software firm Ebix Inc. has acquired 80% stake in travel technology company Zillious Solutions Pvt. Ltd for an undisclosed sum. “Zillious will remain a non-aligned technology platform, and Ebix will promote it internationally in key markets like West Asia, the US and Asia, besides further establishing it as an on-demand travel technology exchange within India,” the statement said.
Also, in 2017, Ebix, which entered India's digital payments market with a majority stake purchase in ItzCash Card Ltd, set aside $100 million (Rs 643 crore) for investments and acquisitions in the country.In an interaction with VCCircle in November 2017, Ebix’s India-born chairman and CEO, Robin Raina, said the firm will acquire more companies and that its India business can touch $500 million in three years.
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Largest US bank to create digital coins for blockchain-based payments
Publication- Tech Circle
Edition- Online
Date- 15 February, 2019
JPMorgan Chase & Co said on Thursday it plans to launch its own digital coins, called "JPM Coin", that customers will be able to use for instant transfer of payments over a blockchain network. The largest U.S. bank by assets said customers, on depositing money at the bank, will be issued the cryptocurrency that they will be able to use for transactions over the network with other JPMorgan clients. The coin can be redeemed for a U.S. dollar, so its value will largely remain stable, the bank said.
When one client sends money to another over the blockchain, JPM Coins are transferred and instantaneously redeemed for the equivalent amount of U.S. dollars, reducing the typical settlement time, the bank said. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon once criticized the former high-flying bitcoin, calling it a "fraud" in 2017. Back then Dimon said cryptocurrencies are "worse than tulips bulbs," referring to a famous market bubble from the 1600s.
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