Axis Bank bets big on merchant acquiring
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Private sector lender Axis Bank has outlined an ambitious strategy for merchant acquisition and onboarding and has begun small ticket lending to them.
Axis Bank is now the third-largest point of sale (PoS) acquiring bank in the payments acceptance business in the country with an installed base of 7.09 lakh PoS devices. The bank processes around ₹20,000 crore of volumes per month as on August 31, 2021. Sanjeev Moghe, EVP and Head, Cards and Payments, Axis Bank said the bank has about 15 per cent market share in terminals and expects it to grow further. “Every terminal comes with a current account for the merchant and that means that at some ratio, we can lend to the merchant,” he said in an interaction with BusinessLine.
Also read: Axis Bank unveils open APIs to help customers use integrated services
While, earlier the bank focussed on lending above a particular ticket size to merchants, it has now started giving smaller ticket loans as improved data has reduced the cost of lending. “We have a lot of partnerships on the issuing side such as the co-branded card with Flipkart. On the acquiring side, we are growing our business organically as well as through partnerships,” said Moghe. The bank has now partnered with BharatPe for installing PoS devices and also has tie-ups with Bijlipay and PineLabs, he further said.
The bank also has acquiring partnerships with several e-commerce and consumer-facing platforms such as Amazon, Google Pay for Business, CRED, PhonePe, Razorpay, PayU, Zerodha, Swiggy, Freecharge, Dream11, BigBasket, Uber and Ola.
Flipkart co-branded card
Axis Bank has now moved its popular Flipkart co-branded card to Visa after the Reserve Bank of India barred Mastercard from onboarding new customers on its domestic card network. The card continues to do well, Moghe said, adding that on a temporary basis, the bank has launched a free-for-life offer for the months of September and October. “This offer has given a very big upside. It has nothing to do with the payment platform,” he said.
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