Airtel Payments Bank enables BHIM UPI-based payments for over half a million merchants
Airtel Payments Bank plans to significantly ramp up its offline merchant base and plans to power at least one million offline merchants over the coming months.
Airtel Payments Bank on Tuesday said that it has enabled open loop BHIM UPI-based payments at over 500,000 merchant points across India, allowing consumers to make digital payments for goods and services by using any BHIM UPI-enabled bank or payments app over their mobile phones.
This means that consumers no longer need to go through the hassle of downloading and maintaining numerous payment apps and can pay with any BHIM UPI-enabled application of their choice.
Airtel Payments Bank’s payments solution for merchants allows consumers to make instant cashless payments from their mobile phones, directly through their savings bank accounts by just scanning a merchant QR code through their preferred BHIM UPI-enabled app.
Speaking on the announcement, Anubrata Biswas, MD and CEO of Airtel Payments Bank, said,
“We are delighted to partner with NPCI to bring BHIM UPI-powered payment solutions at millions of merchants across India, enabling seamless and secure digital payments. This is an important step towards our aim of creating a ubiquitous digital payments ecosystem for all consumers.”
According to the payments banks, its customers are a mix of small merchants as well as large format retail outlets, covering almost all consumer categories such as food, lifestyle, electronics and more.
Airtel Payments Bank plans to significantly ramp up its offline merchant base and plans to power at least one million offline merchants with its payments solution over the coming months.
Dilip Asbe, MD and CEO of NPCI, said,
“We believe that there is already a significant shift to a mobile-first strategy with consumers using functionality-rich and user-friendly apps for P2P (peer-to-peer) or P2M (peer-to-merchant) payments. This partnership with Airtel Payments Bank will help consumers make instant and hassle free transactions digitally thereby adding to seamless customer experience.”
Bharti Airtel announced the launch of Airtel Payments Bank in January of 2017, making it one of the first payments bank to start operations in India.
