Spice Money: Industry Monitoring 28 March 2019
- Priyanka Kanodia
- Apr 1, 2019
- 7 min read
Spice Money
Competitors
Bandhan Bank opens two new branches; six more by March 31
Publication- Millennium Post
Edition- Online
Date- 28 March, 2019
Bandhan Bank on Wednesday opened two new branches, one each in Burdwan and Gurugram. By the end of this month, the Bank plans to open six more branches taking its branch count to 986. The branches will be opened in Gurugram, Lucknow, Raipur, Kolkata and Burdwan. With a network of 3,014 Doorstep Service Centres that the Bank already has, the total number of banking outlets would be 4,000 by the end of this month. The bank has its presence across 34 of the 36 states and union territories in India. Chandra Shekhar Ghosh, MD & CEO, Bandhan Bank, said, "We are glad to announce the opening of our eight new branches in the country. We are well and truly on our path to making banking accessible to all. All this has been made possible because of the support and the confidence that our stakeholders have showered on us over the past years." As on December 31, 2018, Bandhan Bank served 1.53 crore customers and, had deposits worth Rs.34,639 crore and its loan book stood at Rs.35,599 crore.
Bandhan started in 2001 as a not-for-profit enterprise that stood for financial inclusion and women empowerment through sustainable livelihood creation. It turned into an NBFC a few years later but the core objective remained financial inclusion. When Bandhan Bank started operations on August 23, 2015, it was the first instance of a microfinance entity transforming into a universal bank in India. On the day of launch itself, Bandhan Bank started with 2,523 banking outlets. Bandhan Bank is driven by a constant desire to serve better. It offers world-class banking products and services to urban, semi-urban and rural customers alike. In the last few years of operations, Bandhan Bank has spread its presence to 34 of the 36 states and union territories in India serving 1.53 crore customers, as on December 31, 2018. With its experienced management, diversified team and well entrenched distribution, Bandhan Bank is well poised to meet the aspirations of its customers and stakeholders.
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Industry News
In NBFCs, look for a mix of value and growth: Deepak Shenoy, Capital Mind
Publication- The Economic Times
Edition- Online
Date- 28 March, 2019
Are you surprised by the move in the financials? FII overweight sectors like IT and banks -- either one of the sectors have to do well? One of the reasons is the rupee swap introduced by RBI. Liquidity is being flushed into the banking system which is good for Marchend timeframe and also for most of the banks and financial institutions, input interest rates have started to come down. So, it is looking good. I do not want to read on the one-day move though a lot of them have moved substantially to better values from even about a month ago, when a lot of them were 15% to 20% lower than current level. We are heavily invested in financials and biased in that way.
Would some of the PSU banks play a catch-up as far as valuations are concerned? There are two things. The way you look at valuations will decide whether that they are playing catch up or catch down. If you look at the price to book ratio, the book can’t be trusted because a lot of the NPAs are not recognised yet. Even now, the book value is arguably inflated two or three times. If you look at adjusted book, many of these public sector banks themselves are trading at two or three times adjusted book which is not very different from a lot of the private sectors banks which may be trading at three, three and a half times.
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Blockchain can change the way we approach IoT
Publication- The Financial Express
Edition- Online
Date- 28 March, 2019
While Blockchain was hailed as the technology of the future, especially after digital currencies started coming into fashion, the interest around the technology may be peaking. Although funding for blockchain related start-ups has increased—as per Statista this increased to $1.032 billion in 2017 against $93 million in 2013—the number of searches related to technology has decreased from its peak in 2017. Blockchain may have been the technology of the future, but scalability and limited application were hindering its progress. The technology works in the form of a spreadsheet that may be accessible to all, but not editable for everyone, with each piece of information protected by a code. This may have been beneficial for the system for cross-checking of data and in terms of security, but with limited users, it can prove to be a costly affair.
But Blockchain may have found another use case with increased technology penetration. According to a report by IEEE, Blockchain can also be used to protect Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications. IoT may have been the buzzword for a few years now but, with increased hacking attempts, there have been concerns about its implementation. With the present infrastructure, IoT systems are so vulnerable that if a hacker were to get access to even one of the devices, she could bring down the whole network. Blockchain can eliminate this uncertainty with regards to IoT devices. As each block is protected by a separate code, even if the hacker gets access to one block, the other mechanisms remain secure as the system prevents her from accessing any further information. Thus, the chain is protected. This may be a boon not just for IoT systems but for blockchain as well, as the technology can ensure that systems across businesses and homes stay secure.
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Google Pay starts offering 'digital gold', mutual funds coming soon
Publication- Livemint
Edition- Online
Date- 28 March, 2019
Google is adding more services to its payments app, Google Pay, in India as it tries to attract its next billion users. The US search giant on Wednesday introduced an option to purchase “digital gold" on its platform. It is also looking at launching other wealth management products, including mutual funds, said two people familiar with the matter, requesting anonymity. However, when contacted, a Google Pay spokesperson declined to comment on the company’s plans. “Google’s biggest focus this year is to further establish its payments platform Google Pay," said the first person cited above. “The company is adding more use cases to the platform and is tinkering with the idea of adding mutual funds, insurance, etc."
Paytm was one of the first companies to launch “digital gold", which was followed by PhonePe and a few others.
On Wednesday, Google Pay partnered with point-of-sale companies Pine Labs and Innoviti Payment Solutions Pvt. Ltd to strengthen its offline presence. Through this, Google Pay aims to establish a network of 200,000 stores across 3,500 towns and cities in India over the next few months. The rollout will begin with grocery chains Reliance Fresh and Vishal Mega Mart.
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Phone Pe Ties Up With VIVO IPL 2019 To Scale Its Reach In India
Publication- Business World
Edition- Online
Date- 28 March, 2019
Sameer Nigam, CEO & Founder, Phone Pe, in an interview with BW Businessworld discusses how sports leagues in the country can help extend financial services provided by fintechs to a large part of India. During this discussion, he highlighted the growth VIVO IPL 2019 could bring to the Phone Pe table. The brand, while expanding its user base in India, is also concentrating on bringing in innovations and use cases. What are the parameters when you choose to associate with a certain sport? How are Sports leagues benefiting businesses like PhonePe to grow?
Cricket is the most popular sport in India and VIVO IPL is the biggest sporting event of the year. The 2019 season is the 11th edition of the league and it continues to hold mass appeal across the length and breadth of the country. It is one of those few events that is watched by the entire family together, making it the most captive and engaged audience that maps perfectly with the kind of consumers we are looking to connect with. As the official co-presenting sponsor for the TV broadcast of VIVO IPL 2019, we are very well placed to create awareness about the benefits of digital payments as well as the PhonePe app.
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UPI will transform Peer to Retailer transactions in 2019: Here's why
Publication- Money Control
Edition- Online
Date- 28 March, 2019
The Unified Payment Interface (UPI) crossed Rs.1 lakh crore worth of transactions for the first time in the month of December 2018. This number is larger than all credit and debit card transactions that happens in a month across all merchants (POS) in India, both in terms of volume and value. What adds more pride to the achievement is, unlike most other countries, India’s digital payments landscape is growing at a breakneck speed not by excluding the banking system and the safety net it offers, but by having built the UPI rails on top of this nation's banking foundations.
While a chunk of these transactions could be attributed to various incentive offers that came from well-funded players in the payment ecosystem, the overall process has eventually led to a higher adoption of digital payments among consumers. Besides this, there has also been a considerable rise in customer education and habit formation among users. Today, moving money “instantly” from one bank account to another is not "magic" anymore, unlike it was when we launched “Chillr” which has a similar proposition of instant transaction back in early 2015. Money transfers without having to load a wallet has become democratic, empowering millions of Indians towards financial inclusion. It is commendable to witness how in just a matter of a couple of years, UPI has attained such significant scale and critical velocity--something that card networks took decades to crack.
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Amazon to expand its offline QR code payments to More and other stores: report
Publication- Medianama
Edition- Online
Date- 28 March, 2019
Amazon Pay is looking to start its ‘scan and pay’ payments at retail stores, which it currently provides at Shoppers Stop, reports Mint. It will start this at the More supermarket, which it now co-owns with Samara Capital. Aditya Birla Retail Ltd currently operates 523 More supermarkets and 20 hypermarkets selling FMCG, groceries, and daily consumer goods. Amazon told Mint that it had started its Amazon smile code service at ‘neighbourhood retail stores.’ This seems to be an extension of Amazon’s payments via QR codes at retail stores, which it introduced in September last year, something that rivals Paytm started doing 3 years ago, and Freecharge 2 years ago. Users could scan the ‘Amazon Smile Code’ and pay the retailer, and see ratings and reviews on scanning the product. The feature was first reported by FactorDaily, after it was spotted at an Amazon Home store in New Delhi.
In February last year, Amazon India added a UPI payments option for users making purchases on the website. Last month, Amazon Pay, along with Ola, Uber and Samsung Pay, started issuing their own UPI handles. Amazon had tied up with Axis Bank for this. In November last year, Bangalore-based payments company CashFree added Amazon Pay as a payment option for its merchants and vendors. In November last year, Amazon India pumped a further Rs 220 crores into Amazon Pay, taking its total investment to Rs 1692 crores.
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