Paytm Payments Bank, which recently made its official debut, is all set to launch a UPI-powered payments service for its customers. It is expected to go live by August. Paytm Payments Bank will be the latest to join the UPI bandwagon, with 50 banks already live on the platform.
Once launched, the service will allow its customers to transact using a virtual payment address issued by the bank. Commenting on this, Renu Satti, CEO of Paytm Payments Bank, said:
We will soon enable seamless creation of UPI IDs on our platform so that users can send and receive money to each other, and for merchant payments. It will be one of the most important components of our payments platform and enable us to bring cost-efficient digital payment services to every Indian.
The payments bank, launched last month, is going to expand its operations to 31 branches and 3,000 customer service points in the first year. The company is expecting to leverage its large customer and merchant base to gain traction on UPI.
Since the launch of Universal Payments Interface (UPI) in August last year, its transactions have grown steadily. The reports suggest that volumes of UPI transactions have grown 100 times since its launch.
In terms of total UPI transactions volume, the government-backed BHIM app has the largest share. But, Flipkart-owned PhonePe is catching up, claiming to have a nearly 38% share of overall UPI transactions.
Paytm claims to have country’s largest payment ecosystem with a vast loyal consumer base and close to 5 million offline merchants. Renu Satti believes that these factors will offer them an edge once they launch UPI on the platform.
Paytm app, which works as a digital wallet service, had about 225 million customers before it announced to port users to Paytm Payments Bank. The payments bank, which was launched in May this year, competes with Airtel Payments Bank Ltd and India Post Payments Bank Ltd.
UPI ecosystem includes almost all major public and private banks and payment gateways such as BillDesk, Razorpay, CCAvenue, PayU Money and Citrus Pay that supports UPI-based payments.
