One reason why volumes have not increased in the retail segment is that users are not aware of merchants who accept digital currency.
'We went from zero to about 10 million users in three months. Paytm came out with the wallet play and we came out with the UPI play.'
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has barred Paytm Payments Bank from most operations, including taking deposits and fund transfers with effect from March 1, 2024. The curbs on the bank come amid several alleged failures such as violations of know-your-customer (KYC) norms. Under such a scenario, here's what works for customers using Paytm Payments Bank, according to the company.
The US Trade Representative noted that India's average applied tariff rate stood at 17% per cent, the highest of any major world economy.
'The focus needs to shift towards the ability to collect payments, particularly in tier-3 to tier-4 areas where acceptance is still lacking.'
'Most of the bot attacks have originated from outside India.' 'Our firewalls are resilient and withstood the attacks.'
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.
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.
The Reserve Bank on Wednesday hiked key benchmark policy rate by 25 basis points to 6.5 per cent, citing sticky core inflation.
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.
In March this year, Worldline India launched Vabox (Voice Alert Box): merchants will now get instant audio alerts on the settlement of UPI (Unified Payments Interface) payments via QR codes in languages of their choice when customers check out. "They needn't worry whether the amount has been credited to their account," says Gulshan Pruthi, the firm's executive vice-president. The French payments giant will roll out 500,000 Vaboxes in the initial phase.
Semi-high-speed 'Namo Bharat' train services on the 17-km priority section of India's first Regional Rapid Transit System (RRTS) rail corridor will be opened for people from Saturday morning.
Amazon customers can now use their Rs 2,000 notes to top up their Amazon Pay balances during cash-on-delivery orders, as it offers a doorstep solution to ease the stress of exchanging such currency. Customers can deposit cash of up to Rs 50,000 per month, including notes of Rs 2,000 denomination, Amazon said. The cash load at doorstep service by Amazon Pay is helping consumers convert high-value notes for digital transactions.
The Reserve Bank on Wednesday hiked key benchmark policy rate by 25 basis points to 6.5 per cent, citing sticky core inflation. This is the sixth time interest rate has been hiked by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) since May last year, taking the total quantum of hike to 250 basis points. Announcing the bi-monthly monetary policy, RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) by a majority decided to raise the policy repo rate by 25 basis points and keep a 'strong vigil' on inflation outlook.
A merchant using the bank's merchant App, QR code, PoS or Payment gateways, across all segments, including electronics, apparel, grocery, stand to win assured cashback and prizes on volume build-up, EMI or digital transactions.
Agriculture, social services, education, defence and so on will be brought into the digital fold and every gram panchayat will be connected to the internet.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday launched e-RUPI, a person and purpose specific digital payment solution that is aimed at improving transparency and targeted delivery of benefits. Over the years, several programmes have been launched to ensure that the benefits reach its intended beneficiaries in a targeted and leakproof manner, with limited touch points between the government and the beneficiary. The concept of electronic voucher takes forward this vision of good governance. To begin with e-RUPI facility is available for health services and will be expanded to other segments.
'Like doctors, health workers, police, bankers are also COVID warriors,' notes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Its statement also said Facebook does not use WhatsApp payments information for commercial purposes.
When it comes to losing a job permanently, the youngest and the oldest segments in the workforce have reported an increase in setbacks in the second wave of the pandemic, a survey of by a Fortune500 company has said. The survey, conducted in April this year, covered 2,000 persons in India. Six per cent of those over 55 years of age reported having permanently lost their job, as against 4 per cent last year. In those aged under 24, the proportion reporting a permanent job loss has increased to 11 per cent from 10 per cent in the year-ago period, the survey done by financial technology company FIS said.
This year, PhonePe is focussed on bringing more partners across categories, including travel, commute, food, hyper-local, retail and entertainment on the platform.
'Just the amount of work which is there just to become more and more successful in banking. For this to happen you need to have leaders who understand technology.'
Do not trust any incoming phone calls or mails that ask you to install any file or programme, warns Niranjan Upadhye, general manager-fraud risk management, Worldline India.
The coronavirus pandemic has changed how businesses look at payments. Earlier, fintech companies said when they were talking to merchants, they were not interested in digitisation.
A platform that helps retailers reduce failed transactions while keeping the cost down, Innoviti is all set for India's digital payments revolution.
While digitisation and automation have made internal processes more efficient, front-end products are being enhanced digitally through robotics, artificial intelligence and botchats.
Customers taking small and convenient steps and some degree of care and precaution while paying digitally will ensure safety and security from new threats that emerge every day, says Avinash Luthria
Tokenisation acts as an additional layer of security as it masks sensitive card data such as the 16-digit account number, expiry date and security code. However, the security level of the app and the customer's mobile itself also needs to be taken into consideration, say experts. Nikhat Hetavkar explains the whole idea of tokenisation, how it is enabled, its impact on card transactions and related security guidelines.
The Bharat Interface For Money app was launched on the iOS platform earlier this month. It is also available on the more popular Android platform. There have been over 17 million downloads of the BHIM app so far.
New offerings by banks are changing the way you transact.