Facebook-owned messaging platform WhatsApp has been granted permission to double its user base for the payments service to 40 million by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). WhatsApp has a total user base of 400 million and the development will help the platform compete better with entrenched rivals like Google Pay and Phone Pe. The US-based company had been eyeing the payments opportunity for long, but data localisation requirements had initially led to a delay.
In the first such collaboration for India, the country's flagship payments platform, the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), and Singapore's PayNow payment system have launched a real-time cross-border payment linkage system. The linkage, which was launched by Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi and Singapore's PM Lee Hsien Loong on Tuesday, was kicked off by a live cross-border transaction between Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das and Monetary Authority of Singapore managing director Ravi Menon, using mobile phones.
The race to get a New Umbrella Entity (NUE) licence for digital payments may get crowded. As many as six consortiums are said to be in the fray to apply for an NUE licence, which would create a for-profit National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI)-like body for retail payments. A consortium led by Financial Software and Systems (FSS), a leading provider of payment products and payment processor, is in talks and may file an application to the RBI for an NUE license, said sources aware of the development. The other constituents of this group include Indian Bank, Central Bank of India, India Post Payments Bank, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard), and a few small finance banks.
There will be no charge for RuPay credit card use on Unified Payments Interface (UPI) for transactions up to Rs 2,000 in line with the RBI direction, a recent NPCI circular said. RuPay credit card has been operational for the last four years, and all major banks are enabled and are issuing incremental cards for both commercial and retail segments. "During credit card on-boarding on the apps, the device binding and UPI PIN setting process shall include and be construed as customer consent for credit card enablement for all types of transactions," the circular dated October 4 said.
A day after getting permission to raise its Unified Payments Interface (UPI) user base to 100 million, WhatsApp on Thursday said it has plans to make significant investments in 'payments on WhatsApp' across India, including India-first features and driving adoption. The company, however, did not share details of its plans. The Meta-owned messaging app got its first greenlight for its payments service from the National Payments Council of India (NPCI) in November 2020 with a cap of 20 million users. A year later, in November 2021, the limit was raised to 40 million users.
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RuPay National Common Mobility Card's offline wallet can be used to make ticket payments in transit, including in metros, cabs, etc, enabling automatic, quick, cashless payments.
Unified Payments Interface (UPI) clocked over 6 billion transactions in July: the highest ever by India's flagship digital payments platform since its inception in 2016. UPI reported 6.28 billion transactions amounting to Rs 10.62 trillion, according to data released by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which operates the platform. Month-on-month, the volume of transactions was up 7.16 per cent and value increased 4.76 per cent.
These top two apps account for more than 78 per cent of the UPI market in terms of volume of transaction, and 86 per cent of the market by value of transactions in December.
RuPay is working on how to increase offers to customers. It is also focused on technology innovation in the card payment system.
The Reserve Bank on Wednesday allowed credit cards to be linked with the unified payments interface (UPI), which will enable more people to make payments using the popular platform. At present, UPI facilitates transactions by linking savings or current accounts through users' debit cards. "...it is proposed to allow linking of credit cards to UPI," RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said while announcing the regulatory moves, along with the bi-monthly policy review.
While it took UPI three years to reach a billion transactions in a month, the next billion came in just a year. Digital payments, especially UPI, saw increased adoption in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Messaging platform WhatsApp on Wednesday said it has rolled out a pilot program across 500 villages across Karnataka and Maharashtra, aimed at empowering villagers with access to digital payments through 'payments on WhatsApp'. The announcement was made at Fuel For India 2021 - Meta's annual event in India. WhatsApp India Head Abhijit Bose said the pilot aims to effect a behavioral transformation to digital payments at the grassroots.
Interchange fee is the amount charged by ATM operators for every transaction.
Earlier this month, RBI told the Delhi high court that Google Pay is a third party app provider and does not operate any payment systems. Therefore, its operations are not in violation of the Payment and Settlement System Act of 2007.
The Reserve Bank on Thursday asked banks to provide the option of Interoperable Card-less Cash Withdrawal (ICCW) at their ATMs, a move aimed at curbing frauds like skimming, card cloning and device tampering. Currently, cardless cash withdrawal through ATMs is offered by a few banks for their customers at their own ATMs (also known as on-us basis). "All banks, ATM networks and WLAOs (White Label ATM Operators) may provide the option of ICCW at their ATMs," the central bank said in a circular.
India saw growth of around 213 per cent in the number of real-time payments processed over the past year.
WhatsApp on Wednesday said it expects to facilitate the purchase of "affordable sachet-sized" health insurance through its platform by the end of the year as part of its efforts to provide users in India with greater access to financial solutions. The Facebook-owned company noted that its 'Payments' feature is now available to users across the country (currently up to 20 million users) with support from banking partners - State Bank of India, HDFC, ICICI and Axis Bank.
Its statement also said Facebook does not use WhatsApp payments information for commercial purposes.
Facebook-owned messaging service WhatsApp has secured regulatory approval for launching its digital payment platform -- WhatApp Pay -- in a phased manner, close to two years after the US-based company's pilot run.
In order to further enhance customer convenience, and to leverage the 24x7 availability of real-time gross settlement (RTGS), NACH which is currently available on bank working days, is proposed to be made available on all days of the week effective from August 1, 2021, RBI's Shaktikanta Das said.
Unified Payments Interface (UPI), the flagship payments platform of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), made a record in volume and value of transactions in July as digital payments rise in the pandemic. UPI processed a record 3.24 billion transactions in July up 15.7 per cent from June when it processed 2.8 billion transactions. In value terms, in July, the platform processed transactions worth Rs 6.06 trillion, up 10.76 per cent from June.
The Bharatiya Janata Party rejected this was any sort of demonetisation and instead reminded the Congress that even during the rule of Manmohan Singh, old currency notes were taken off circulation.
RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das on Tuesday launched a new service, which will enable over 40 crore feature phone users to undertake digital payments in a secure way. The service christened UPI (unified payments interface) '123PAY' is a three-step method to initiate and execute services for users which will work on simple phones which do not have an internet connection. Das said, as of now, the multifaceted features of UPI are mostly available only on smartphones, which excludes people from the lower rung of the society from an economic perspective, especially in the rural areas, from accessing the popular service, even though the smartphone prices are going down.
Surge in UPI transactions is because of an increased consumer interest in making bill payments and recharging mobile phones online, and purchase of non-essential goods on e-commerce platforms.
Open Network Digital Commerce (ONDC) has expanded its pilot to 15 more cities. This comes at a time when it plans to begin operations next month. Snapdeal has also signed the onboarding agreement with the network and will debut on it next month. On Monday, ONDC expanded to Noida, Faridabad, Lucknow, Bijnor, Bhopal, Chhindwara, Kolkata, Pune, Chennai, Kannur, Thrissur, Udipi, Kanchipura, Pollachi, Mannar and Ramnathpuram.
In a bid to check fraud, the Reserve Bank on Friday decided to permit all banks to introduce card-less cash withdrawal through ATMs.
RuPay has 42% of total debit cards, but contributes only 16% of PoS, e-commerce transactions. With banks scheduled to renew deals with Visa, Mastercard, here's how RuPay plans to increase its reach to premium customers.
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.
Taxi booking, shopping and transfer of money will be easy.
Microsoft has become the first global Big Tech company to join the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), an Indian government initiative for developing a first-of-its-kind open network for digital commerce. The world's second-largest technology firm intends to introduce social e-commerce via its app in the Indian market later this year. ONDC is expected to open to the public in Bengaluru over the next fortnight as it enters into the next phase of the pilot for further fine-tuning before rollouts in other cities, according to a source in the know.
The company was awaiting clarification from the Reserve Bank of India on data storage before it took a final call on data localisation.
ICICI Bank says it blocked all UPI transactions made through PhonePe due to security concerns.
Multiple levels of integrations with the bank servers are required for enabling transactions.
Apart from SBI, UPI 2.0 partner banks are HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, ICICI Bank, IDBI Bank, RBL Bank, YES Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, IndusInd Bank, Federal Bank and HSBC.
The Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) recent decision to allow credit cards for payments through the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is likely to attract a merchant discount rate (MDR), said a top payment industry source. For smaller merchants, a subsidy for MDR could be provided. "With credit card-UPI linkage, UPI will not only be a payment instrument but also a lending platform. "How can banks lend without a commercial model? Also, the government has said MDR will be zero for payment products but not for lending products," the source said, indicating the MDR regime for credit card-linked UPI payments.
The increasing involvement of Big Tech in the financial system could give rise to concentration risk and there are potential spillovers, which call for closer attention, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das said on Tuesday. "...enormous amounts of consumer data is being generated and leveraged upon by a few entities (the so-called Big Tech) by virtue of their huge customer base. "Such developments raise concerns on concentration risk and potential spillovers as their level of engagement with the financial system strengthens in the years to come," Das said at the Global Fintech Fest 2022.
In August, the central bank had announced that it will set up the Reserve Bank Innovation Hub (RBIH) to promote innovation across the financial sector by leveraging on technology and creating an environment that would facilitate and foster innovation.
'Hacking of an ID or an account will have the same impact on a user in a city and one in a small town.' 'Security is like a railroad, you create it to last for every customer.'
