Airtel Payments Bank has announced today that it has finally started offering open loop BHIM UPI based transactions at over 500,000 merchant points across India. This new introduction will allow the consumers to make digital payments for goods and services by using any BHIM UPI enabled bank or payments app over their mobile phones. It is worth noting that Airtel Payments Bank has been providing payments solutions to consumers to make instant cashless payments from their smartphones for quite some time now, but it was missing the BHIM UPI method. The customers can pay directly through their savings bank accounts by just scanning a merchant QR code through their preferred BHIM UPI enabled app. Airtel Payments Bank users can also use this QR to pay directly through their Savings Bank account or wallets using the Airtel Thanks app.
Better Payments Management for Merchants with BHIM UPI
Owing to this new introduction, the customers will not be required to download and install multiple payments applications on their phone and they will be able to play with any BHIM UPI enabled application of their choice. This new feature for the merchants will make digital payments seamless as well as secure. Airtel has said that the Airtel Payments Bank powered BHIM UPI payments will allow the customers to pay anywhere, anytime through a single interface.
Anubrata Biswas, MD & CEO – Airtel Payments Bank said about this new introduction, “We are committed to the vision of creating a cashless Indian economy by providing innovative and intuitive solutions with equal focus on consumer and merchant convenience. 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.”
Dilip Ashbe, MD & CEO, NPCI (National Payments Corporation of India) which oversees all digital payments including the UPI, said, “We are happy to collaborate with Airtel Payments Bank for BHIM UPI based payment solutions as it brings us closer to our mission of covering every citizen of the country through one or the other mode of digital payments. 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.”
Better Convenience for Customers and Merchants Both
Airtel has also added that the introduction of the UPI payments will be beneficial for the merchants as well since now they will be receiving the amount from the customers directly into their bank accounts. Also, the customer won’t be required to keep multiple modes of payment acceptance at their store and a single QR code at their shop would suffice to make payments. This would make things easier for both customers as well as merchants.
Currently, Airtel Payments bank merchants are a mix of small merchants as well as Large Format Retail outlets, and it covers almost all consumer categories such as food, lifestyle, electronics and more. Now Airtel Payments Bank has said that it plans to ramp up its offline merchant base significantly and it targets to power at least one million offline merchants with its payment solution over the coming months.
