Axis Bank lets Indian merchants accept contactless payments on standard NFC phones
Axis Bank has become the first in India to offer merchants the ability to accept NFC, contactless, QR and remote payments on standard smartphones... More
India
India to open antitrust investigation into Google Pay?
The Competition Commission of India is looking into allegations that Google is unfairly promoting its mobile payments app in the country, “five sources familiar with the case” have told Reuters... More
Bangalore buses to go cashless post-lockdown
Buses will no longer accept cash payments once current curbs on public transportation are eased, the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) has announced... More
BharatPe adds voice alerts to merchant app to combat spread of Covid-19
BharatPe launches two new features in its app to curb need to touch handsets for checking transactions — Economic Times — “With Paisa Bolega — voice alerts of transactions — shopkeepers will be able to hear aloud instant confirmation of all payments received through their BharatPe QR, without touching the phone… This does away [with] the need for the merchant to check his phone repeatedly to see if money has come in.”
Facebook adds grocery ordering to WhatsApp in India
Facebook-backed Reliance Jio pilots basic grocery ordering service on WhatsApp in India — The Next Web — “Less than a week ago, Facebook announced it was investing $5.7bn into India’s largest mobile carrier, Reliance Jio. We now have an idea of how the two giants plan to collaborate: The latter’s ecommerce arm, JioMart, is now testing a system for WhatsApp users to order goods via the messaging service.”
Google to revamp its payments products
“We had a tremendously successful launch in India from which we learnt a lot of features, and we are bringing that and we are revamping our payments products globally,” Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai has revealed... More
India to relax mobile wallet KYC rules
‘Low KYC’ norm to help mobile wallets retain their customers — Economic Times — “In a move set to bring relief to scores of mobile wallet firms such as Paytm, PhonePe, Amazon Pay and their several million users, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will allow wallet service providers to continue operating their millions of non-compliant know-your-customer (KYC) accounts which earlier faced cancellation… An estimated over 200m mobile wallets ran the risk of being cancelled by the regulators, once the deadline to upgrade their non-compliant accounts to ‘full KYC’ accounts expires on February 29.”
India requires banks to let cardholders opt in to contactless payments
Card issuers in India are to be required to ship all new cards to customers with contactless functionality switched off by default — and also provide cardholders with a range of easy ways to toggle their card’s contactless support on or off... More
Icici Bank lets customers withdraw cash with their mobile phones
Customers of India’s Icici Bank can now make a cash withdrawal at any of the bank’s 15,000 ATMs, using just their mobile phone... More
India’s Icici Bank launches open banking portal
Icici Bank launches India’s largest API banking portal with nearly 250 APIs — Icici Bank — “The Icici Bank API Banking portal, which consists of 250 APIs, enables developers of prospective partner companies across the globe to seamlessly sign up on it, create an application, select the application, test it out and get the sample code. With this, businesses, fintechs, corporates and e-commerce start-ups can easily partner with the Bank and co- create innovative customer solutions in a frictionless manner, all from the convenience of a single portal.”
India’s bank-led UPI instant payments platform reports 1bn mobile transactions
“UPI has had the fastest acceptance rate not just among payment platforms but digital platforms of any kind,” Dilip Asbe, chief executive officer of the National Payments Corporation of India, has told Bloomberg... More
Delhi Metro explores biometric transit cards for concessionary fares
Delhi Metro to introduce biometric-based ticketing to offer concessions to students and senior citizens — Techradar — “Delhi Metro is looking to be the first metro line in India to link biometrics to smart cards, in a bid to offer concessions to riders… Once the new biometric-based ticketing system is installed, the smart card will be linked to an individual users’ credentials, and the card will no longer be transferable.”
Mastercard to let Indian merchants accept payments on NFC phones
Mastercard to launch solution for smartphones to become contactless acceptance devices — The Hindu BusinessLine — “If your phone has NFC, then it can become a point-of-sale (POS) device. A customer can tap the contactless card on the phone,” said Vikas Saraogi, vice president of acceptance development at Mastercard, adding that it is likely to be launched in India in the first half of next year.”
eMarketer identifies top countries for mobile payments adoption
China remains the country with by far the highest mobile payments adoption rate, with 81.1% of smartphone owners making use of the technology, eMarketer reports... More
Uber to add Delhi Metro transit tickets to mobile app
Uber users in Delhi can now use the app to plan journeys on the Delhi Metro and on local bus services — and will soon be able to purchase train tickets from within the Uber app as well... More
Google Pay reports 67m users in India
“In the last 12 months alone, we’ve grown more than three times to 67 million monthly active users, driving transactions worth over US$110bn on an annualised basis, with hundreds of thousands of offline and online merchants,” Caesar Sengupta, vice president of Google’s next billion users initiative, has revealed... More
Google Pay launches NFC Spot Codes for merchants in India
Google has launched a new offering for merchants in India that combines an online storefront with physical Spot Codes they can place in their premises to let shoppers easily place orders and make payments... More
Facebook to partner with banks for WhatsApp payments rollout?
WhatsApp in talks to launch mobile payments in Indonesia — sources — Reuters — “Unlike in India where it plans to offer direct peer-to-peer payment services, WhatsApp will simply serve as a platform in Indonesia supporting payments via local digital wallets due to tough licensing regulations… The Indonesia model could become a template for WhatsApp to adopt in other emerging markets to get around regulations on foreign players creating their own digital wallets, the sources said.”
Mumbai bus passengers to pilot India’s new national transit ticketing system
Mumbai bus operator BEST is to begin a pilot of India’s ‘One Nation One Card’ national transit card system in November this year... More
Amazon rolls out QR-based anti-counterfeiting platform
Amazon launches Transparency in Europe, India and Canada — Amazon — “Transparency is a product serialisation service that provides a unique code for every unit that is manufactured. Brands put these codes on its products and every time one of these products is ordered in Amazon’s stores, Amazon scans and verifies the code to ensure only authentic units reach customers. Additionally, customers can use a mobile app to scan the code and verify authenticity regardless of where they purchased their units. Brands can also use Transparency to communicate unique unit-level information, including manufacturing date, manufacturing place, or other enhanced product information (eg ingredients).”
