WhatsApp Pay India Vinay Choletti has resigned just after four months he was elevated to the position, according to his details on a professional social media platform. Choletti's resignation is the fourth high-profile exit in about one and half months from Meta in India after its country head Ajit Mohan stepped down in November. After Mohan, WhatsApp India head Abhijit Bose and Meta India Public Policy Head Rajiv Aggarwal also resigned from the company last month.
To push digital transactions in rural and semi-urban areas, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Monday issued a framework allowing offline payments up to Rs 200 per transaction, subject to an overall limit of Rs 2,000. An offline digital payment means a transaction that does not require internet or telecom connectivity. Under the offline mode, payments can be carried out face-to-face (proximity mode) using any channel or instrument like cards, wallets, and mobile devices.
Nearly two million e-mandates for recurring payments have been registered with banks and card networks after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) made it mandatory from October 1 to take prior consent of a customer before debiting her account, sources in know of the matter said. Industry estimates peg the recurring transactions at approximately 2.5 per cent of the total volume of transactions, and about 1.5 per cent in terms of value. Of these, around 75 per cent of domestic recurring transactions, and about 85 per cent international recurring payments are below Rs 5,000.
Fintech firm One97 Communications -- owner of the brand Paytm -- has shifted its nodal account to Axis Bank from Paytm Payments Bank. The move will allow continuity of Paytm QR, Soundbox, card machine after the March 15 set by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), as per a regulatory filing. The RBI has advised customers and merchants of Paytm Payments Bank Ltd (PPBL) to shift their accounts to other banks by March 15, giving 15 more days to the beleaguered entity to close most of its operations, including deposit and credit transactions.
More than three weeks have passed since the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) new guidelines on e-mandates for recurring payments came into effect but consumers are still taking to social media platforms to complain about the disruptions they are facing. This comes as most stakeholders in the ecosystem have not put in place systems in accordance with the new rules, resulting in many transactions not going through. Industry sources said most banks are still not ready, especially the smaller ones.
The NPCI has permitted non-residents from 10 countries, including the US, Canada and UAE, to digitally transfer funds using the UPI platform from NRE/NRO accounts. The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) in a circular said it has been receiving requests for allowing non-residents to use international mobile numbers for transacting in Unified Payments Interface (UPI). Accordingly, the NPCI in a circular dated January 10 has asked the UPI participants to put in place a mechanism by April 30 under which non-residents having NRE/NRO accounts will be allowed to transfer funds using their international mobile numbers.
The bank has said rent payments will not earn reward points, and redemption of reward points on various cards have been capped in certain segments.
With rising disposable incomes in cities beyond metros, the penetration of credit cards - and consequently, credit card spending - is growing at a much faster pace than in traditional metro cities, primarily driven by e-commerce spending.
Using credit or debit cards abroad can prove costly.
The Reserve Bank on Wednesday hiked key benchmark policy rate by 25 basis points to 6.5 per cent, citing sticky core inflation.
Fintech firm One97 Communications, which owns the Paytm brand, on Wednesday said its loss in the fourth quarter of the financial year 2023-24 has widened to Rs 550 crore following the ban imposed by the RBI on transactions related to its payments bank. The company had posted a loss of Rs 167.5 crore in the same period a year ago, the company said in a regulatory filing. "Our fourth quarter FY24 results were impacted by temporary disruption on account of UPI transition etc. and permanent disruption because of the PPBL embargo.
Payment aggregators should have a minimum net worth of Rs 100 crore and if they don't manage to arrange that money within one year of putting out final guidelines, they should stop doing their business, says central bank's draft paper.
Digital payments and financial company Paytm is looking to hive off its payment aggregator business into a new subsidiary Paytm Payments Services Limited, according to a notice sent to shareholders for approval. The company is seeking approval of the same from its shareholders through an extraordinary general meeting on September 23. "To consider and approve transfer of Payment Aggregator business to Paytm Payments Services Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Company, to comply with Reserve Bank of India guidelines, being considered as sale of undertaking," the EGM notice issued on August 31 said.
The National Payments Corporation of India on Thursday granted approval to Paytm-owner One97 Communications Ltd to participate in UPI as a Third-Party Application Provider (TPAP) under the multi-bank model. Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, State Bank of India, and YES Bank will act as Payment System Provider (PSP) banks to Paytm.
Fintech firm One97 Communications, which owns the Paytm brand, has received support from merchants, and it assured them of continuity of services without any disruption, the company said in a blog on Sunday. The blog post came amid the recent crisis around Paytm Payments Bank Limited (PPBL), an associate company of Paytm, which has been barred by the RBI from accepting deposits or top-ups in customer accounts, wallets, FASTags and other instruments after February 29.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Thursday extended the card-on-file (CoF) tokenisation deadline by six months to June 30, 2022, in view of various representations received from industry bodies. Card-on-file, or CoF, refers to card information stored by payment gateway and merchants to process future transactions. The earlier deadline was December 31, 2021. "In light of various representations received in this regard, we advise...the timeline for storing of CoF data is extended by six months, ie., till June 30, 2022 and post this, such data shall be purged," RBI said in a notification addressed to all payment system providers and payment system participants.
Capital markets regulator Sebi on Wednesday streamlined the payment of processing fee through the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) system for shares applied for and allotted during an initial public offering (IPO). In addition, the regulator has devised a new reporting format for capturing the data of all ASBA (Application Supported by Block Amount) applications unblocked by Self Certified Syndicate Banks (SCSBs) and their corresponding date of actual unblock. The new format has been put in place after reviewing the performance of SCSBs on timely unblocking of application amounts and feedback received from market intermediaries, Sebi said in a circular.
Indian kiranas are agile enough to face the q-com challenge, but it's going to be a tough fight, notes Ambi Parameswaran.
In the backdrop of the crisis brewing at Paytm Payments Bank, major fintech companies are ramping up their workforce and inducting new faces in their leadership teams, industry sources said on Wednesday. Users will not be able to add funds to their Paytm Payments Bank Wallet after February 29, though they will still be able to use the services and the existing balance in the wallets, according to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) diktat. Industry sources said that competitors to Paytm are investing heavily in offline payments while doubling their salesforce.
The police received over 500 complaints alleging that many social media influencers and YouTubers promoted the HIBOX mobile application on their pages and lured people into investing through the app, the officer said.
Rediff.com, one of India's pioneering internet companies, on Tuesday announced the appointment of Mr Vishal Mehta as its new Chairman and Managing Director. This key leadership change follows Infibeam Avenues Ltd's acquisition of a majority stake in Rediff.com.
Almost all banks that issue contactless cards provide users with a 100 per cent liability cover.
Link your UPI app to a separate bank account or wallet that has only a limited sum.
Fintech firm One97 Communications, which owns Paytm brand, on Friday said its loss has widened to Rs 840 crore in the quarter ended June 30, primarily due to continued impact of restrictions on Paytm Payments Bank Ltd. The company had posted a loss of Rs 358.4 crore in the same period a year ago, according to a regulatory filing by the company. The consolidated revenue of Paytm declined 33.48 per cent to Rs 1,639.1 crore during the reported quarter, from Rs 2,464.2 crore in the same period a year ago.
Paytm app users will continue to use all services like mobile and DTH recharges except for Paytm Payments Bank's offerings including wallet funds, Fastag and bank accounts, according to the company hit by RBI restrictions. Paytm Payments Bank users will not be able to add any funds to their wallet and bank accounts but will be able to use the balance until it is exhausted, according to the RBI order. "The RBI has issued a directive restricting Paytm Payments Bank account/wallet from accepting new deposits or allowing credit transactions after March 15, 2024.
Tech giant Apple has stopped accepting payments via debit and credit cards in India. Apple has stopped accepting cards for subscriptions, and purchases using credit cards issued by banks in India. Apple will also not accept payments for ad campaigns on Apple Search using credit cards issued by Indian banks. All campaigns will be put on hold from June 1.
Private sector lender Axis Bank on Wednesday launched the country's first contactless wearable payment devices to allow customers make on-the-go transactions more conveniently. Announcing the 'Wear N Pay' wearable devices brand, Axis Bank said it is the first bank in India to offer such a service. The bank has partnered with Thales and Tappy Technologies to design and create these products, which are exclusively available on the Mastercard platform, it said in a release.
Technology giant Apple has informed its customers in India that it will no longer store their card information on file and will not be accepting payments made by debit cards and credit cards for purchases or subscriptions on the App store or other Apple services. The decision has been taken by the US-based company in view of the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) card data storage guidelines, which will kick in from July 1. The deadline for implementing these norms was extended twice.
Digital payment solutions provider Paypal on Friday said it will stop offering domestic payment services within India from April 1.
As many as 140 million customers of HDFC Bank and Axis Bank are expected to face interruption in banking services in the weekend due to the former's system upgrade and the transition of Citi India business to the latter. Both the banks have notified their customers about the interruption in services. HDFC Bank - the country's largest private sector lender with 93.2 million customers - had announced that it will undertake a system upgrade on July 13, wherein it will migrate its core banking system (CBS) to a new engineered platform to enhance customer experience.
Fintech firm One97 Communications, owner of Paytm brand, is laying off an undisclosed number of employees and claimed that it is providing outplacement support for their smooth transition, according to a company statement. Paytm's sales employee headcount in March 2024 quarter dropped by about 3,500 to 36,521 personnel on a quarter-on-quarter basis, mainly due the impact of the Reserve Bank of India's ban on services of Paytm Payments Bank.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has recognised the Fintech Association for Consumer Empowerment (FACE) as a self-regulatory organisation (SRO) in the fintech sector, the central bank announced on Wednesday. The banking regulator received three applications for fintech SRO. Of the remaining two applications, one has been returned by the RBI with a provision for resubmission after meeting specific requirements, while the third application is still under examination, said Governor Shaktikanta Das at the Global Fintech Fest in Mumbai.
The One97 Communications stock saw a surge in interest as the company's operating performance update for August was considered positive by the Street. In addition, there was a news buzz as the company released a new hitech soundbox, which has longer battery life and processes all major cards. The performance indicates that the company, which is better known by its Paytm brandname, is still on course to achieve its guidance of going cashflow positive by the end of the 2023-24 financial year (FY24).
Get a new QR code from an alternative provider. PhonePe, Google Pay, Pine Labs, etc are some of the other service providers.
Shares of One97 Communications (OCL), which provides financial services under the brand 'Paytm', and has a banking arm Paytm Payments Bank (PPBL), hit the 5 per cent upper circuit at Rs 428.10 on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) in Monday's (February 26) intraday trade. The up move in the stock on Monday came after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) asked the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), in post stock market hours, to look into the possibility of migrating PPBL customers, using the UPI handle '@paytm', to four-to-five other banks.
National Payments Corporation of India is currently in the process of testing sound-based payments with three companies: PhonePe, ToneTag and UltraCash.
Encouraging results for PayTM (One97 Communications) for the 2022-23 financial year (Q4FY23) have led to a surge in the company's stock price, gaining nearly 5 per cent during Monday's trade. PayTM reported Q4FY23 revenues at Rs 2,330 crore, up 51 per cent on year-on-year (YoY) basis (13.2 per cent quarter-on-quarter or QoQ), led by monthly transaction user (MTU) growth of 27 per cent and average revenue per user or ARPU growth of 19 per cent YoY. MTU is defined as users with at least one transaction/month.
Online food delivery platform Zomato will acquire Paytm's entertainment ticketing business for Rs 2,048 crore to strengthen its "going-out" segment in a deal that will help the troubled fintech firm to sharpen its focus on core payments and financial services distribution.
The recent Reserve Bank of India (RBI) norms on tokenisation services, which will be offered by card networks, are likely to result in merchants and payment aggregators incurring a cost as they have to pay a fee to the networks. The merchants and the payment aggregators, in turn, may pass on the cost to the customers. The norms, which were issued by the banking regulator released on September 7, allow card networks like Visa and Mastercard to offer the tokenisation service.
Walmart-owned fintech firm PhonePe said it has crossed 500 million lifetime registered users on its platform. With this milestone, 1 in 3 Indians are now on PhonePe. The company said it is the first Indian internet company to have reached this scale globally. This milestone has been achieved in just over 7 years since the PhonePe UPI (Unified Payments Interface) payments launched in August 2016.