Tag: payment

WhatsApp wins approval to double payments offering to 40 million users in India

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WhatsApp has won regulatory approval to double the number of users on its payments service in India to 40 million, a source with direct knowledge told Reuters on Friday.

The company had requested that there should be no cap on users of its payment service in India.

Instead, the National Payments Corporation of India(NPCI)this week told the company it could double the user base to which it can offer its payment service – currently restricted to 20 million.

WhatsApp is owned by Facebook, which recently changed its name to Meta.

The source said the new cap would still hinder the company’s growth prospects given that WhatsApp’s messenger service has more than 500 million users in India, the company’s biggest market.

It was not clear when the new cap would come into effect.

WhatsApp did not immediately respond to a request for comment, while the NPCI declined to comment.

WhatsApp competes with Alphabet Inc’s Google Pay,SoftBank- and Ant Group-backed Paytm and Walmart’sPhonePe in India’s crowded digital market.

The NPCI gave WhatsApp approval to start its payments service last year after the company spent years trying to comply with Indian regulations, including data storage norms that require all payments-related data to be stored locally.

WhatsApp has almost reached its user base of 20 million for payment services, said the source, who declined to be identified as the details are private.

Online transactions, lending and e-wallet services have been growing rapidly in India, led by a government push to make the country’s cash-loving merchants and consumers adopt digital payments

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PIDF corpus at ₹614 crore

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The corpus of the Payments Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF) stands at ₹613.89 crore. Over 2.45 lakh physical devices and more than 55.36 lakh digital devices were deployed for payment acceptance under the PIDF by September-end 2021.

“Contribution to the PIDF is made by the Reserve Bank, authorised card networks and card issuing banks; the corpus currently stands at ₹614 crore,” the Reserve Bank of India said on Tuesday in a status update on the scheme.

RBI’s contribution

Of this amount, while the RBI has contributed ₹ 250 crore, authorised card networks have contributed ₹153.72 crore and card issuing banks have put in ₹210.17 crore.

The PIDF Scheme, operationalised by the RBI from January 1, 2021, subsidises deployment of Points of Sale infrastructure (physical and digital modes) in Tier-3 to Tier-6 centres and north-eastern States of the country.

From August 26 this year, beneficiaries of PM Street Vendor’s AtmaNirbhar Nidhi in Tier-1 and Tier-2 centres are also covered.

In terms of deployment of payments acceptance devices, 98,504 physical devices and 20,46,075 digital devices were deployed in Tier 3 and 4 centres. Another 84,968 physical devices and 30,47,750 digital devices were deployed in Tier 5 and 6 centres.

Physical devices include PoS, mobile PoS, GPRS, PSTN or Public Switched Telephone Network and digital devices include inter-operable QR code-based payments such as UPI QR, Bharat QR.

In the north-eastern States, 18,449 physical devices and 2,42,145 digital devices were deployed while under the PM SVANidhi Scheme, 44,021 physical devices and 2,00,708 digital devices were deployed.

PIDF will be operational for three years from January 1, 2021 and may be extended for two more years depending upon the progress. It aims to increase payments acceptance infrastructure by adding 30 lakh touch points – 10 lakh physical and 20 lakh digital payment acceptance devices every year.

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UPI hits new record with ₹7.71-lakh crore worth of transactions in October

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Amidst festival season sales and opening up of the economy, UPI transactions touched a record high at ₹7.71 lakh crore in value terms in October.

This was a new record for UPI, which is fast becoming the most popular choice for digital payments. It was a 56 per cent jump from ₹6.54 lakh crore in transaction value recorded in September.

According to data released by National Payments Corporation of India on Monday, the number of transactions on the Unified Payments Interface platform amounted to 421 crore in October, compared to 365 crore in September.

Daily payments through UPI were averaging between ₹25,000 crore to ₹30,000 crore in October.

Also read: Mobile payments growing faster than card payments

The Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) also scaled a new high in October and processed 43.06 crore transactions worth ₹3.7 lakh crore. It had processed 38.48 crore transactions amounting to ₹3.24 lakh crore in September.

Meanwhile, there were 21.42 crore transactions via the NETC FASTags totalling ₹3,356.74 crore in October compared to 19.36 crore transactions worth ₹3,009.3 crore in September.

Mobile payments are now growing faster than card payments and are clocking over $1 trillion in annualised value in 2021, the 2021 India Mobile Payments Market Report by S&P Global Market Intelligence’s Financial Institutions Research team had said.

Also read: Strong growth in digital payments indicates a lasting shift in consumer payment behaviour

According to the report, payments made via apps that bypass credit card rails rose 67 per cent to $478 billion in 2020.

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SBI and Indian Navy launch NAV-eCash Card, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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The Indian Navy and State Bank of India (SBI) has launched SBI’s NAV-eCash Card onboard India’s largest Naval Aircraft Carrier INS Vikramaditya.

The launch of SBI’s NAV-eCash Card is in view SBI’s efforts towards the GOI’s vision of Digital India and a conscious shift towards less-cash economy. The unique infrastructure at naval ships inhibits traditional payment solutions particularly when the ship is in high seas where there is no connectivity. NAV-eCash Card with its dual-chip technology will facilitate both online as well as offline transactions.

The Card will obviate the difficulties faced by personnel onboard in handling physical cash during deployment of the ship at high seas. The card takes care of the requirements of Navy to provide a seamless onboard experience. The NAV- eCash Card will change the payment ecosystem while the ship is sailing with no dependency on cash for utilization of any of the services onboard.

Shri CS Setty, MD (Retail & Digital Banking), SBI, emphasized upon the Bank’s commitment towards defence forces and the long relationship with the armed forces of India. He also expressed the feeling of pride on being associated with defence forces. The concept will be replicated at other naval ships and various defence establishments for creating a secured, convenient and sustainable payment ecosystem.

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Tokenised card transactions: RBI extends scope of devices

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The Reserve Bank of India has extended the scope of permitted devices for undertaking tokenised card transactions to include consumer devices such as laptops, desktops, wearables (wrist watches, bands, etc.), and Internet of Things (IoT) devices.

This is in view of uptake in the volume of such transactions during the recent months.

The RBI, in a circular to authorised card networks, said this initiative is expected to make card transactions more safe, secure, and convenient for the users.

Hitherto, the tokenised card transaction facility was available only for mobile phones and tablets of interested cardholders.

Tokenisation means the replacement of actual card details with a unique alternate code called the “token”, which will be unique for a combination of card, token requestor and device.

Authorised networks

In January 2019, the central bank had permitted authorised card payment networks to offer card tokenisation services to any token requestor (that is third-party app provider), subject to the conditions.

There are five authorised card payment networks — American Express Banking Corp, Diners Club International Ltd, MasterCard Asia/ Pacific Pte Ltd, National Payments Corporation of India and Visa Worldwide Pte Ltd — operating in India.

In the January 2019 circular, the RBI said its permission to card networks for tokenisation in card transactions extends to all use cases/channels [for example: near field communication/ magnetic secure transmission-based contactless transactions, in-app payments, QR code-based payments, etc.] or token storage mechanisms (cloud, secure element, trusted execution environment, etc.).

All extant instructions of RBI on safety and security of card transactions, including the mandate for Additional Factor of Authentication (AFA)/PIN entry, are applicable for tokenised card transactions also.

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Paytm and HDFC Bank enter into strategic partnership

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IPO-bound Paytm, the country’s largest payments platform, and HDFC Bank, the largest private sector bank, have entered into a strategic partnership.

This brings together two market leaders who will drive innovative digital solutions for financial transformation in the country by combining their strengths in the banking, lending and digital payments space.

The fusion of HDFC Bank’s network, products and credit appraisal capabilities and Patym’s technological platform will accelerate digital transformation in semi urban and rural India while bringing more people into formal banking channels.

Partnership

Talking about the partnership, Bhavesh Gupta, CEO, Paytm Lending said in a statement, “Together we aim to provide innovative digital lending and payment solutions for consumers and merchants alike.This partnership will further strengthen financial services ecosystem by bringing together our technology and digital solutions and HDFC Bank’s retail and credit prowess.”

Renu Satti, COO, Offline Payments, said, “Paytm’s reach in the offline and online merchant space and HDFC Bank’s retail influence, will aim for dynamic growth in the payments space. Paytm has a history of launching innovative products that have made way for adoption of retail payments among various merchant partners. This partnership aims to bring innovative products focusing on affordability.”

Parag Rao, Group Head – Payments, Consumer Finance, Digital Banking & IT, HDFC Bank said, “As India’s largest issuing and acquiring bank, we have always endeavoured to personalise our offerings to customers-consumers, businesses and corporate houses. Through this partnership we will also be jointly delivering enhanced SmartHub solutions to the market. We believe that this is the start of a great partnership and the cumulative strength of both HDFC Bank and Paytm will help us strengthen our respective leadership positions”.

HDFC Bank SmartHub solutions is an integrated platform offering merchants a one stop solution shop for all their business needs-payments, banking, lending and segment specific business solutions.

Paytm , which has filed a draft offer document with SEBI for an Initial Public Offering (IPO), is India’s largest payments platform with 333 million users and 21 million merchants onboard

With over 50 million card customers (both credit and debit cards) HDFC Bank is a strong player in the payments ecosystem with leadership in both credit card issuing and acquiring businesses. It has a footprint of over two million merchant acceptance points and 48 per cent business market share on merchant acquiring volume.

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‘Government does not recognise cryptocurrency as legal tender’

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The Finance Ministry on Tuesday informed the Rajya Sabha that the number of ‘billionaires’, in terms of income tax payers, had more than doubled during assessment year or AY 2019-20 (fiscal year 2018-19) but reduced a bit in AY 20-21 (fiscal year 2019-20). In response to another question, it reiterated that it does not consider cryptocurrencies legal tender or coin.

Taxpayers

In her written reply to a question on the number of billionaires, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman clarified that there is no legislative or administrative definition of the term ‘billionaire’ under direct taxes. Wealth tax has been abolished with effect from April 1, 2016; therefore, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) no longer captures information about the complete wealth of an individual taxpayer.

‘Ethereum Improvement Proposal’ all set to bring major change to crypto world

She informed that 77 individuals had disclosed a gross income higher than ₹100 crore (one billion rupees) in a year in their return of income during AY 2018-19, and their number rose to 141 the next year before falling to 136 in AY 2020-21.

Crypto-currencies

In response to another question, Minister of State in the Finance Ministry Pankaj Chaudhary said in a written reply: “The Government does not consider cryptocurrencies legal tender or coin and will take all measures to eliminate use of these crypto-assets in financing illegitimate activities or as part of the payment system. The Government will explore use of block chain technology proactively for ushering in digital economy.”

Saverin-backed exchange becomes India’s first crypto unicorn

Further, he mentioned that a high-level inter-ministerial committee (IMC) constituted under the chairmanship of the Secretary (Economic Affairs) to study issues related to virtual currencies and propose specific actions had recommended prohibiting all private cryptocurrencies, except any issued by the State. “The Government would take a decision on the recommendations of the IMC and the legislative proposal, if any, would be introduced in the Parliament following the due process,” he said.

Seizure of govt assets abroad

Replying to a question, Chaudhary said an order has been passed by a French court freezing certain Indian government properties in the case pertaining to Cairn Energy. This had been communicated through diplomatic channels. Counsels with relevant experience have been engaged to handle the enforcement proceedings. In consultation with its counsels, the government is taking legal steps to protect its interests. He also informed that the Taxation Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2021, passed by Parliament, is expected to reduce litigation.

“Government of India is not in receipt of any investment arbitral tribunal award against the Republic of India that in itself allows for the seizure of Government of India properties held abroad,” he said.

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Paytm Money opens technology development centre in Pune

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Digital financial services platform Paytm, on Thursday announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary Paytm Money has launched its technology development and innovation centre in Pune.

It also plans to hire over 250 front-end, back-end engineers and data scientists to build new wealth products and services.

A press statement said Paytm Money thrives to simplify investments and wealth creation for retail investors, and the new facility at Pune will focus on driving product innovation, specifically for equity, mutual funds, and digital gold.

Varun Sridhar, CEO – Paytm Money, said in a statement: “We are very excited to launch our Pune tech R&D centre and looking forward to developing new wealth management products and disruptions in Pune. We continue our vision to leverage technology to lower costs for our consumers and provide a solid, innovative and stable platform.”

Also read: Paytm to expand operations in rural areas, smaller towns

He added, “We need solid engineering talent to ensure we meet our ambitions. Pune is famous for its high-quality education and offers a great talent pool along with good infrastructure and great weather. We believe Pune is poised to become an innovation hub for fintech and was a natural choice for Paytm Money’s expansion plans.”

The company has launched a slew of new products and services aimed at empowering seasoned investors as well as new to investment users. It aims to achieve over 10 million users and 75 million yearly transactions in FY21 with the majority of users from small cities and towns.

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Report, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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More than 65% of female customers continue to prefer cash as their preferred payment method of choice, according to a report by PayNearby. The Aadhar enabled Payment System (AePS) emerged as the second most highly used instrument of choice, in the report titled “Women’s digital independence index” which observed more than 3500+ retail stores recording financial transactions of female customers.

75% of retailers surveyed as part of report said that women in the age group of 31-40 years were amongst the most digitally adept, followed by females between the ages of 20-30. Further, the age group of 20-30, also contributed to 25% of all women consumer for financial services, in urban and metro centres.

Other widely used forms of payment methods, apart from Cash and AePS include the United Payment Interface (UPI) and Debit Cards, which saw usage preferences ranging from 5-15%, amongst varying age groups. At retail touch points, popular services availed by females included cash withdrawals, mobile recharges and bill payments, with the transactions being conducted by women in the age bracket of 31-40 years of age and 20-30 years of age, respectively.

It was further found that more than 76% of women operated their bank account themselves, primarily for cash withdrawal and cash deposits. Notably, more evolved services such as insurance and bachat khata found few takers, with less than 5% and 12% usage, respectively.

Further findings revealed by the report include that 32% of women visiting kiranas and retail outlets for financial tranactions had access to smartphones and were also active users of IM app Whatsapp.

Anand Kumar Bajaj, Founder, MD & CEO, PayNearby, commenting on the findings said “The study showed that post COVID, the awareness among women customers to save for the rainy day have substantially gone up, with more than 32% of women customer indicating this as a priority for them. However, informal savings at home still seems to be the trend, with less than 12% of women customer showing awareness for a formal savings product,” adding “To bring change and inculcate the habit of formal savings in every household, we require coordinated efforts from all stakeholders, and at PayNearby our commitment towards that continues unabated.”



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Mastercard to open up network to select cryptocurrencies, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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Mastercard Inc said on Wednesday it was planning to offer support for some cryptocurrencies on its network this year, joining a string of big-ticket firms that have pledged similar support.

The credit-card giant’s announcement comes days after Elon Musk‘s Tesla Inc revealed it had purchased $1.5 billion of bitcoin and would soon accept it as a form of payment.

Asset manager BlackRock Inc and payments companies Square and PayPal have also recently backed cryptocurrencies.

Mastercard already offers customers cards that allow people to transact using their cryptocurrencies, although without going through its network.

“Doing this work will create a lot more possibilities for shoppers and merchants, allowing them to transact in an entirely new form of payment. This change may open merchants up to new customers who are already flocking to digital assets,” Mastercard said.

Mastercard specified that not all cryptocurrencies will be supported on its network, adding that many of the hundreds of digital assets in circulation still need to tighten their compliance measures.

Many cryptocurrencies have struggled to win the trust of mainstream investors and the general public due to their speculative nature and potential for money laundering.



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