Aadhaar / UPI / RuPay - News and Discussions

[RISING SUN]

PayPal CTO says in for the long haul in India, to back UPI soon
US payments company PayPal looks at India as a critical market to build local products working with the country’s domestic card system RuPay, and intends to support the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), the open platform that has revolutionised digital payments in the country.

“As a global company, India is a very critical market for us. It is very, very important and we think of it longterm,” PayPal chief technology officer Sri Shivananda told ET. “There’s a lot that we are doing in terms of working with the local ecosystem, including the government and the regulators.”

“We will continue to grow the products that we offer (in India) over a period of time. We’ve worked on RuPay integration. And over time, we plan on doing the UPI piece,” he added.

The National Payments Corporation of India built the UPI payments railroad. PayPal, founded by Elon Musk and Peter Theil, disrupted the US payments industry during the dotcom boom and was soon acquired by eBay, the auction listing company.

In 2015, it was spun off as a separate entity and is expected to cease processing card payments for the auction listing company by the end of this year. It has 305 million accounts globally, according to a regulatory disclosure.

The firm has thousands of users in India, largely individuals and small and medium enterprises who use the platform to receive payments for services rendered to customers globally. “We’ve been in India for a long time, but we were focused mostly on cross-border trade, helping micro, small and medium enterprises in India.

We do a significant large volume of Indian service providers, providing services to people outside. We are the (platform) for Indian diaspora sending money back to India. So, we’ve been in that business for a long time, almost a decade,” he said.

PayPal has not been late coming to the Indian digital payment ecosystem, using the UPI platform dominated by Google Pay, PhonePe and Paytm. UPI processed over 1.32 billion transactions in February, the highest in a month since it became operational in August 2016.

More users in India transact using a mobile app that has UPI connected to their bank accounts, rather than use debit or credit cards. “If you measure things based on this week or this quarter, that’s different. We think of ourselves as a long-term player. We’re here to make sure that Indian consumers have access to our services as well.

And we are making all the investments necessary to make sure we can sell them (here) as well…,” Sivananda said.
PayPal has its largest engineering team outside of the US in India, with centres in Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai that work on global products with relevance in India. “They are continuously innovating across all the platforms. And this innovation is done in India, that actually supports the whole globe…,” he said.
PayPal CTO says in for the long haul in India, to back UPI soon

 

[RISING SUN]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1237354333282406402

 

[Gautam]

Paytm leads digital payments growth as India avoids touching cash

Written By: IANS
Updated: Wed, Mar 18, 2020; 12:01 pm
New Delhi, IANS

However, Paytm which recently launched "All in One" solutions helps offline merchants accept payments even remotely. This, according to industry insiders, is finding many takers among businesses as more merchants and users are coming on board for digital transactions.

Fintech major Paytm on Tuesday said it has witnessed a massive surge in digital payments as more people work from home, avoid venturing out and touching cash to stop the spread of coronavirus.

"We have been witnessing 20 per cent growth in digital payments as compared to the regular days. Since February, the number of users visiting the Paytm app and the number of sessions per user has also increased," a Paytm spokesperson told IANS in a statement.

"There has been a massive surge in repeat transactions for various use-cases like fuel stations, utility payments among others. Offline payments have grown by 12 per cent owing to more people preferring Paytm over cash," the statement added.

Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das on Monday asked banks to encourage the use of digital payments.

While according to industry experts, several digital payments firms are witnessing a decline in transactions as the country goes into lockdown, Paytm has gained more traction in the last one month.

With a 16 million-strong merchant base, Paytm is seeing more businesses extensively accepting payments online.

The Noida headquartered digital payments firm is seeing more people using Paytm for food and grocery delivery, as well as other services, to avoid touching cash as much as possible.

Some merchant acquirers such as BharatPe and service providers like Pine Labs have seen a slump in transactions due to shops, malls, eateries remaining shut.

However, Paytm which recently launched "All in One" solutions helps offline merchants accept payments even remotely. This, according to industry insiders, is finding many takers among businesses as more merchants and users are coming on board for digital transactions.

"There has been a 15 per cent increase in incoming requests from offline merchants to partner with Paytm. We are seeing a trend that merchants are offering home deliveries in their neighbourhood and suggesting their customers to Paytm as they fear the bacterial load on the hands and cash," a Paytm spokesperson said.

As the number of people diagnosed with coronavirus in India rises to 126, experts are emphasising on the usage of contactless payment options.

Currency notes are one of the most potent carriers of coronavirus and health departments and experts across India are asking people to avoid touching cash and use digital payments.

Paytm leads digital payments growth as India avoids touching cash

 

[Gautam]

India is offering local tech companies $130K to build an encrypted Zoom clone

by Ivan Mehta — 1 day ago in India

It’s no secret now that governments across the world are trying to avoid Zoom for internal meetings after the app was found to be a security and privacy nightmare.

While the Indian government hasn’t explicitly banned the platform, it’s now keen on creating its own video conferencing app. The center has launched a program for Indian tech companies to come up with an encrypted video conferencing solution that works on all platforms.

The government has asked companies to register for the project by April 30. By the end of three phases of the program, one team will get ₹1 crore ($130,255) to develop the app.

The app‘s requirements include support for poor network connectivity and lower-end devices, multilingual closed captions, and encrypted calls.

Requirements for India‘s own video conferencing app.

Earlier this week, News18 reported that the center has asked all ministers to use a conferencing app developed by the National Informatics Center (NIC). The report noted that the app has 1,800 studios across the country to facilitate video calls.

The move could help India save plenty of cash. According to this article from the Economic Times about government job vacancies, the Central government alone has a strength of 3.8 million posts.

That’s a ton of meetings. Now, it isn’t clear just how many of those people are in a position to host meetings, but let’s just use that figure of 1,800 meeting studios as a guide. Zoom charges $1,999 per month for an enterprise plan that supports 100 hosts. If you connect all 1,800 studios, that works out to $36,000 a month. The government would end up paying Zoom its budget of $130,000 for less than four months of service.

These figures certainly won’t help figure out the exact cost outlay for the Indian government. But they do illustrate just how much money a service like Zoom’s could cost a massive client like this, and how much the center could stand to save over time (even if you factor in operational costs).

However, with the new app, the government likely wants to remove the requirement of dedicated studios for digital meetings, and make a platform that’s available across devices.

In the wake of coronavirus outbreak, several courts in India have switched to video conferencing — especially Zoom. Even the country’s defense minister, Rajnath Singh, was seen using Zoom for an internal meeting. But given security concerns swarming the app, the government would want to use an indigenous platform that’s supposedly more secure.

India is offering local tech companies $130K to build an encrypted Zoom clone

 

[Gautam]

RBI authorizes Transcorp to issue Co-Branded Prepaid Instruments (PPI) Cards & Wallets – Will facilitate cashless payments during COVID-19

Published on April 20, 2020

Jaipur : Leading forex and payment solutions provider Transcorp International Ltd, a 25 year old BSE-listed company, announced the receipt of RBI’s nod for entering into co-branding arrangements for Prepaid Instruments that can be used for in over 35 lac stores and online gateways. Transcorp is proud to be the one of the first non-bank companies to obtain this authorization from RBI, which a testament to its commitment of serving Indian citizens and companies alike. Transcorp has leveraged its PPI license (which is the same license held by leading mobile-wallet operators in India) to operate.

In line with the Government’s initiatives of cashless India and to promote safe transactions by eliminating the handling of currency, Transcorp has launched Multi-Wallet Prepaid cards which has become the gold standard for expenses, incentives and reimbursements across business houses.

During the present COVID-19 crisis where it is not safe to handle cash, Prepaid Cards, including contactless, provide a safe mode of payment. The contactless variant of the card is also recommended globally by experts as a safer option to transact.

On the occasion, Mr. Amitava Ghosh, Chief Executive Officer, Transcorp said ” These cards can replace cash payment for all value transactions up to Rs. 1,00,000. Organizations that need to disburse payments like wages, reimbursements, incentives and other recurring payments to their employees or beneficiaries can seamlessly do so. This facilitates the accounting department to manage expenses by not having to check every individual bill; eliminating cash as a medium of paying for company expenses. Organizations have experienced cost reductions and transparency.

Transcorp cards are highly customizable and, with the approval of RBI, can now be co-branded with a partner organization’s logo; as well as restrict certain merchant categories as per the client’s requirements.

Mr. Ayan Agarwal, Vice President-Payment Systems, Transcorp said ” Partners have devised clever business models around prepaid cards and have added new lines of revenue and loyal customers by sharing the benefits of the interchange income that is earned on every spend. By providing digital & physical cards, multiple variants and custom solutions, we are able to get partners live even during these testing times of a global pandamic.

There is a tremendous demand for cards & wallets in the financial world and we are evaluating each partnership in detail to meet our strict norms. We are in advanced stages of integrating products like UPI and Fastag with National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) “

These cards will be available at all Transcorp branches, through select agents and on order. They can be delivered to one’s office or home address even during the lockdown.

Transcorp International Limited is open for business today as it has been for the last 25 years – we are always committed to giving quality services to our customers and partners. Even the present time of lock down the company is operating and providing its following services to its customers to help the nation and its citizens:

1. Outward Remittances to Indians and families stuck abroad
2. Domestic Money Transfers for migrant workers to send money to relatives
3. Aadhar Enabled Payment Services for families of migrant workers to receive cash
4. Insurance to protect lives and assets during these difficult times
5. Pre-Paid payment solutions for easy access to funds and reduced currency handling
6. Travel services to those who need emergency assistance via subsidiary Ritco Travels

About Transcorp:

Transcorp, a Public Limited Company incorporated in 1994, is listed with Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) with a turnover of Rs. 2300 crore. It is a leading player in the Foreign Exchange and outward remittance industry with the coveted AD 2 license (Authorized Dealer – category II), from RBI. Thereby providing individuals and corporates forex services (cards, currency and traveler’s cheques) and permissible outward remittance services. Over time, Transcorp has:

• Remitted over US$ 450 million abroad through its own license and partner banks
• Transacted over Rs. 2500 crores through its 700 SBI kiosks and Transcash portal

Other divisions of Transcorp include:

Domestic Money Transfer (DMT): With over 3000+ locations to send money to any bank account in India.
Ritco Travels: A leading IATA travel agency with B2C (online/offline), large corporates, distributors and 2500+ franchise locations across India.
State Bank of India: National Business Correspondent with over 700 SBI touch points in underbanked regions.
Investments: Transcorp is authorized to accept Fixed Deposits by members of the public. The group has invested in Indian startups and international forex companies.

RBI authorizes Transcorp to issue Co-Branded Prepaid Instruments (PPI) Cards & Wallets – Will facilitate cashless payments during COVID-19

 

[RISING SUN]

Facebook's big India deal portends a bruising time for SoftBank-backed Paytm
NEW DELHI/MUMBAI: Facebook's $5.7 billion investment in Reliance promises to be the biggest headache yet for Paytm, a SoftBank-backed pioneer in India's digital payments market but which has been losing ground to rivals with deeper pockets.

Facebook's WhatsApp, which has been working on gaining regulatory approval for payments services in India, is gearing up for a full rollout of those services by June, according to a source familiar with the matter.

The partnership with Reliance, announced on Wednesday, will give WhatsApp an inside track on payments for Reliance's retail unit, which aims to serve tens of millions of small shops across India. It will also be able to link up with Reliance's telecoms business, which has taken the market by storm since its launch in late 2016, and WhatsApp itself has an enormous presence in India with more than 400 million users.

"If someone would have lost sleep as the Facebook-Reliance deal was announced, it must be Vijay Shekhar Sharma," said a second source, referring to Paytm's founder.

The source, who has close ties to both Reliance and Paytm, declined to be identified to protect business interests.

Compared to other major players in India's digital payments markets, Paytm is seen as more vulnerable to attack, already on the backfoot amid competition from Alphabet's Google Pay and Walmart's PhonePe.

While having previously attracted investments from the likes of Japan's SoftBank, China's Alibaba and U.S.-based Berkshire Hathaway, it lacks its own wells of capital for funding, putting it at a disadvantage.

Paytm also remains unprofitable, with its parent firm reporting a loss of over $500 million in the year ended March 2019.

Facebook's big India deal portends a bruising time for SoftBank-backed Paytm

The partnership with Reliance will give WhatsApp an inside track on payments for Reliance's retail unit.

economictimes.indiatimes.com

 

[Ashwin]

 

[Gautam]

Jio-Facebook deal: Future is India’s and it’s digital

By Kanchan Gupta
Apr 25 2020

It has often been argued that the biggest impediment to India emerging as the favoured foreign investment destination is the unreasoned and unreasonable objections raised by nay-sayers who conjure conspiracy theories and invoke dire consequences like a magician pulling rabbits out of his hat.

Decades of perverse socialism, born not out of ideology but government inefficiency and inadequacy, instilled into most Indians a loathing for big industry, profit generation and wealth creation. Virtue was attached to businesses that were perpetually in the red; conversely, it was sinful for businesses to be in the black.

Attitudes, both in Government and among the people, have no doubt changed and gathered pace in recent years. Young, aspirational India is comfortable with the idea of industry making profits, generating jobs and creating wealth. Government realises that the totem poles of yesterday’s Soviet-style command economy are irrelevant in the era of market-driven economics.

Young, aspirational India is comfortable with the idea of industry making profits, generating jobs and creating wealth. Government realises that the totem poles of yesterday’s Soviet-style command economy are irrelevant in the era of market-driven economics​

Yet, the conversion is incomplete: there are naysayers within and outside government who suffer from what Arun Shourie once famously described as the ‘Instant Rejection Syndrome’ – anything and everything must be rejected on the presumption that it is either bad, undoable or has ‘long-term implications’. Commonsense continues to be discounted.

So it is with the Rs 43,574 crore deal between Reliance Jio and Facebook. The naysayers are loathe to concede that at a time when the national and global economies have entered an unprecedented zone of uncertainty and turmoil on account of the massive disruption caused by COVID19, we have just witnessed the ‘largest investment for a minority stake’ by a technology company in India. It is, therefore, important to separate substance from the noise and for that, it is important to view this investment in the right perspective.

We have just witnessed the ‘largest investment for a minority stake’ by a technology company in India. It is, therefore, important to separate substance from the noise and for that, it is important to view this investment in the right perspective​

Before we look at what Facebook’s investment in Jio is all about, it is important to understand what this investment is not about. The agreement does not represent an American business buying a majority or controlling stake in an Indian company. It is incomprehensible and absurd, for instance, to compare it with Walmart’s acquisition of Flipkart.

Second, by no stretch of the imagination is it an ‘opportunistic bid’ to extract resources from a lucrative Indian business or the burgeoning Indian digital market at a time when Government’s attention is diverted by a national crisis caused by a raging pandemic. Hence, it is neither a predatory purchase nor a soft investment to place a small bet on the future.

Third, and this is important to note because we are once again beginning to hear the same old cant, there is absolutely no data arbitrage or data acquisition embedded in the transaction, hidden from the public eye, as this investment is not about either. To claim otherwise is a spurious argument – it may generate social media hashtags and mindless clamour, but beyond that it is no more than what it is: an entirely baseless assumption.

So, what then is the Jio-Facebook deal all about ? Putting it simply, it is about one of the most successful Silicon Valley enterprises investing in India’s large, rapidly growing and attractive digital market. It is a decision based on the opportunity available to Facebook in what will eventually be its largest and most lucrative ecosystem. The decision also reflects Facebook’s belief, as the investor of $5.7 billion, in Reliance’s proven ability to scale and manage operations that compete globally across sectors. This explains why Facebook has chosen to be a minority partner while contributing substantially to developing a new business model

Jio-Facebook deal is one of the most successful Silicon Valley enterprises investing in India’s large, rapidly growing and attractive digital market. It is a decision based on the opportunity available to Facebook in what will eventually be its largest and most lucrative ecosystem​

Unlike investments in businesses in other parts of the world, the Jio-Facebook agreement vindicates the unique Indian way of doing business: of responding to the needs of the bottom of the pyramid. This new digital platform will not displace small and local businesses. Instead, it will collaborate with them and amplify their reach as well as their profitability. The distinctly Indian ‘Kirana’ led retail model will be infinitely strengthened both in terms of business viability and their employment generation capacity.

The agreement and the implicit trust of the investor in the Indian market validate the potential of fintech, e-commerce and a reliable data infrastructure to boost growth and development in India. This potential extends well beyond India’s urban middle classes. In fact, the primary beneficiaries of this new arrangement will also be India’s as yet untapped semi-urban and rural digital economy. It will be a big step towards giving form and shape to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Digital India’.

The bogey of data protection and privacy being threatened by Facebook's investment in Jio is easily dismissed. Mr Mukesh Ambani has already stated that data is a national resource; that value created by data generated by Indians should and will be deployed for Indians; and, that data generated in India shall remain localised within India's geographical boundaries.

What this agreement also does is to put to rest largely imagined, headline-friendly apprehensions about the overall health of India’s digital and telecom sectors. It proves that where viable business models exist, global investments will follow. Yes, digital and telecom businesses with bad management practices and dubious investments will falter and fail. If such businesses or their apologists refuse to admit their inability to read the writing on the wall and failure to swiftly change with the times, they only have themselves to blame. Neither envy nor victimhood will lead them out of the morass in which they are stuck.

Current rules allow foreign direct investment up to 49 per cent through the automatic route. The two other private sector players in the telecom sector, Vodafone-Idea and Airtel-Singtel, have foreign partners. For them to point fingers at a 9.9 per cent holding by a foreign investor in a competing firm which has raced ahead of them despite having entered the market well after they were up and about, is both hypocritical and deceitful.

Let it be said and said unambiguously: Most, if not all, of those who are opposing the Reliance-Facebook agreement are betraying their partisan politics and their critique is tainted by conflict of interest. Some of them see this as an opportunity to attack political opponents; others find in it a chance to deride competitive – and successful – businesses.

These are the people who tirelessly propagate the fiction that the ‘India Story’ lacks potential and credibility. They believe that the post-COVID19 world will not only see India’s rise halted and its economy in a shambles, but also its new leadership and energy decimated. Facebook’s $5.7 billion minority stake in India’s largest technology ecosystem shows their belief to be what it is: a lurid illusion.

We began with what the Jio-Facebook agreement is not about. It would be in order to conclude with what it is essentially about. The investment tells the world that the future belongs to India and that future is digital.

Jio-Facebook deal: Future is India's and it's digital | ORF

 

[Gautam]

India is offering local tech companies $130K to build an encrypted Zoom clone

by Ivan Mehta — 1 day ago in India
View attachment 15415

It’s no secret now that governments across the world are trying to avoid Zoom for internal meetings after the app was found to be a security and privacy nightmare.

While the Indian government hasn’t explicitly banned the platform, it’s now keen on creating its own video conferencing app. The center has launched a program for Indian tech companies to come up with an encrypted video conferencing solution that works on all platforms.

The government has asked companies to register for the project by April 30. By the end of three phases of the program, one team will get ₹1 crore ($130,255) to develop the app.

The app‘s requirements include support for poor network connectivity and lower-end devices, multilingual closed captions, and encrypted calls.

View attachment 15414
Requirements for India‘s own video conferencing app.

Earlier this week, News18 reported that the center has asked all ministers to use a conferencing app developed by the National Informatics Center (NIC). The report noted that the app has 1,800 studios across the country to facilitate video calls.

The move could help India save plenty of cash. According to this article from the Economic Times about government job vacancies, the Central government alone has a strength of 3.8 million posts.

That’s a ton of meetings. Now, it isn’t clear just how many of those people are in a position to host meetings, but let’s just use that figure of 1,800 meeting studios as a guide. Zoom charges $1,999 per month for an enterprise plan that supports 100 hosts. If you connect all 1,800 studios, that works out to $36,000 a month. The government would end up paying Zoom its budget of $130,000 for less than four months of service.

These figures certainly won’t help figure out the exact cost outlay for the Indian government. But they do illustrate just how much money a service like Zoom’s could cost a massive client like this, and how much the center could stand to save over time (even if you factor in operational costs).

However, with the new app, the government likely wants to remove the requirement of dedicated studios for digital meetings, and make a platform that’s available across devices.

In the wake of coronavirus outbreak, several courts in India have switched to video conferencing — especially Zoom. Even the country’s defense minister, Rajnath Singh, was seen using Zoom for an internal meeting. But given security concerns swarming the app, the government would want to use an indigenous platform that’s supposedly more secure.

India is offering local tech companies $130K to build an encrypted Zoom clone

Reliance Jio plans to bring JioMeet video conferencing service out of beta soon

Updated: 30 Apr 2020, 08:21 PM IST
By Prasid Banerjee

• JioMeet can allow group calling for up to 100 participants
• Jio could capitalise on the fact that it already has over 50 million subscribers for its telecom services

With the covid-19 pandemic forcing people indoors, video conferencing apps have gone viral worldwide (JioMeet)

As part of its fourth quarter results announcement today, Reliance Jio said it plans to launch the JioMeet video conferencing service. The service, though, has been live on smartphones for a while now, but sources say that it was more like a beta period for the app. Given the proliferation of video chat and conferencing platforms, Jio seems to be getting ready to capitalise on the same. The company is now planning a nationwide launch for the service.

Based on the frequently asked questions (FAQ) page on the JioMeet website, the app can allow group calling for up to 100 participants. While it’s unclear whether Jio plans to make changes to such features, 100 participants is what viral collaboration platform Zoom allows on its free tier. Like Zoom, it seems that JioMeet is also meant for both consumer and enterprise customers. The app’s user guide shows steps to start “VC Room Meetings", which is a feature only apps that are meant for enterprise use cases would have. Features like this are usually required only for enterprise customers.

Furthermore, the app’s privacy policy currently states that the company may “disclose personal information" to affiliates “when necessary to perform services on our behalf or on your behalf". That pertains to other services that may link to the app, though it’s unclear how Jio will be dealing with personal information.

If it does launch JioMeet soon, the company will have to take care of how it protects user privacy, since competitors like Zoom and Houseparty have come under fire for such lapses.

When it officially launches, JioMeet will be competing against platforms like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Cisco Webex and more on the enterprise front, while on the consumer end services like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger Chatrooms, Houseparty, Google Duo and others will be worth watching.

With the covid-19 pandemic forcing people indoors, video conferencing apps have gone viral worldwide. The biggest winner by far has been Zoom, whose market value shot up to over $31 billion thanks to an increased user base. Jio, of course, could capitalise on the fact that it already has over 50 million subscribers for its telecom services and could capitalise on the same to increase its user base initially.

The Indian government had earlier announced a nationwide challenge, asking developers to build an indigenous solution for video conferencing. The government also announced a Rs. 1 crore award for the winner of this challenge.

Reliance Jio plans to bring JioMeet video conferencing service out of beta soon

 

[Gautam]

Reliance Jio, Facebook looking to launch a ‘super’ app in India: Details

By: FE Online, Published: April 16, 2020 3:30:48 PM

The discussions regarding the project have been delayed due to the ongoing coronavirus-induced COVID-19 pandemic.

Such a multipurpose app would be beneficial for Reliance Industries.

Super app: Social media giant Facebook and telecom giant Reliance Jio are coming together to figure out the possibility of a super app, similar to the multipurpose Chinese platform WeChat, according to an ET report. They are reportedly hoping to develop the app using the WhatsApp platform as well as its huge user base.

The development, which is currently in the discussions phase, has been delayed for now due to the ongoing coronavirus-induced COVID-19 pandemic. The idea is to launch a platform that would give users a place to chat, while also letting them shop for groceries from Reliance Retail stores, for clothes and apparels via ajio.com and also make digital payments using JioMoney. The idea is along the lines of WeChat where users can converse, undertake digital payments, play games and also book flights and hotels.

Such a multipurpose app would be beneficial for Reliance Industries in two ways. While it would lead to direct B2C contact for Reliance’s businesses, it would also give the company an insight into the spending trends among the customers.

Facebook-Jio super-app: The current status

According to the report, the project is currently in the due diligence phase, with Morgan Stanley as the investment banker.

The project is compartmentalised and the developments of the project in one department is not known to any other department. The project will be significant for both Reliance and Facebook and both of them will contribute by bringing in funding, expertise in their domain and technical know-how.

However, it is still not clear what the final structure of the project will be. The two giants could form another company to manage the project, with both of them investing in it, or one of them could invest in the other to create a new venture.

The report said that both Facebook and Reliance Jio have hired top-notch lawyers in the US to look at all sorts of legalities.

It had earlier been reported by Financial Times that Facebook was looking to invest billions of dollars for a 10% stake in Reliance Jio. However, how this thing pans out is still to be seen.

Reliance Jio, Facebook looking to launch a ‘super’ app in India; Details inside

 

[Gautam]

Jio & Facebook Getting JioMart on WhatsApp Pushes a Big Digital Shift For 1.3 Billion Indians

Reliance Jio says this investment would enable new opportunities for businesses of all sizes. There is special focus on small businesses across India, and there is expectation that the new digital ecosystems will reach out to as many as 1.3 billion Indians, including via WhatsApp.

News18.com
Last Updated: April 30, 2020, 7:45 PM IST

Reliance Jio has announced the Q4 results for FY2019-20 and this is the same period during which the strategic partnership with Facebook was finalised, which sees Jio Platforms Limited get an investment of Rs 43,574 crore by the social media giant Facebook. This $5.7 billion, or Rs 43,574 crore deal, gives Facebook as much as 9.99% stake in Reliance Jio. The company says out of the total investment, Rs 14,976 crore will be retained at Jio Platforms to drive future growth, including the JioMart shopping platform on WhatsApp.

“Jio is embarking on the next leg of growth with a path-defining partnership with one of the world’s largest digital companies, Facebook. We are together determined to make India a truly digital society with best-in-class connectivity network complemented with disruptive digital technology platforms for entertainment, commerce, communication, finance, education and health harnessing world’s best tech capabilities. Our focus will be India’s 60 million micro, small and medium businesses, 120 million farmers, 30 million small merchants and millions of small and medium enterprises in the informal sector,” says Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director, Reliance Industries Limited.

This investment by Facebook firmly cements Reliance Jio’s and indeed its subsidiary Jio Platforms credentials as a tech and platform company—in fact, this transaction values Jio Platforms Ltd at post money equity value of Rs 436,172 crore. This is also the biggest minority shareholding deal ever for Facebook or for that matter any tech company, and also the largest foreign direct investment (FDI) for minority stake, in India. It is also the biggest investment in a technology company in India. This puts Jio Platforms among the top 5 listed companies in India by market capitalization, within three and a half years of the launch of commercial services.

Reliance Jio says this investment would enable new opportunities for businesses of all sizes. There is special focus on small businesses across India, and there is expectation that the new digital ecosystems will reach out to as many as 1.3 billion Indians, including via WhatsApp.

Jio Platforms, Reliance Retail Limited and WhatsApp have also entered into a commercial partnership agreement to further accelerate Reliance Retail’s New Commerce business. The JioMart service would be integrated within WhatsApp, which will allow consumers to access the nearest kirana and departmental stores from within WhatsApp, browse what is on sale and order the products from there itself—for home delivery.

The fact is, Jio has been able to make its mark so far by reaching out to pretty much every strata of the society, and not just those who would potentially return higher revenues per user. The Jio mobile data pricing is the biggest example, which has completely changed the way the telecom industry operates.

This partnership comes at a time when technology is in focus, including digital payments.

Jio & Facebook Getting JioMart on WhatsApp Pushes a Big Digital Shift For 1.3 Billion Indians

 

[Gautam]

Nirmala Sitharaman launches free instant PAN card facility through Aadhaar

Updated: 28 May 2020, 05:16 PM IST
By Nikhil Agarwal

• You can get a new PAN card in just 10 minutes and for free
• All you need to apply for an e-PAN card is an Aadhaar number

It is mandatory to link your PAN card with Aadhaar card.

NEW DELHI : As announced in the Union Budget earlier, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today formally launched the facility for instant allotment of PAN card using Aadhaar-based e-KYC. The facility is now available for all those Permanent Account Number (PAN) applicants who possess a valid Aadhaar number and have a mobile number registered in the UIDAI database.

Issued on a near to real time basis, the allotment process is paperless and an electronic PAN (e-PAN) is issued to the applicants free of cost by the income tax department.

Although the facility of instant PAN through Aadhaar based e-KYC was launched formally today, however, its ‘Beta version’ on trial basis has been on the e-filing website of I-T department since February.

In a release, the department said since then more than 6.7 lakh instant PAN cards have been allotted to taxpayers. The turnaround time has been just about 10 minutes.

The process for applying for instant PAN card is extremely simple. Go to the e-filing website of the Income Tax Department, share your Aadhaar number and submit the OTP generated on the Aadhaar registered mobile number.

On completion of this process, a 15-digit acknowledgment number will be generated. Once allotted, the e-PAN card can be downloaded from the portal. The e-PAN is also sent to applicant on the email id, if registered with Aadhaar.

The income tax department said as on May 25th, a total of 50.52 crore PANs have been allotted to taxpayers, out of which, around 49.39 crore are allotted to individuals and more than 32.17 crore are seeded with Aadhaar so far.

It is mandatory to link your PAN card with Aadhaar within June 30 this year, failing which it will become inoperative. The income tax department has also allowed all income tax payers to use their Aadhaar number in lieu of PAN.

Nirmala Sitharaman launches free instant PAN card facility through Aadhaar

You can get a new PAN card in just 10 minutes and for free.All you need to apply for an e-PAN card is an Aadhaar number

www.livemint.com

 

[Steel]

Report: Indian e-Payments App Exposes Millions of Users in Massive Data Breach

Report: Indian e-Payments App Exposes Millions of Users in Massive Data Breach

Led by Noam Rotem and Ran Locar, vpnMentor’s research team discovered a massive amount of sensitive financial data leaking from a website connected to India’s

www.vpnmentor.com

 

[Gautam]

After UPI, This Is India’s Other Big Digital Infrastructure Success Story

MEDICI Global
June 27 2020, 8:38 AM

DigiLocker will provide the users with 1GB of cloud storage to store their documents, in order to minimise the use of physical documents.

India’s Unified Payment Interface, atop which a number of digital payment solutions have been built, is widely recognised a big success. Apart from the growing adoption locally, the likes of Google have cited UPI as a model that should be replicated globally.

But UPI isn’t India’s only success. There is another public digital infrastructure platform that has made an impact on the India’s financial services landscape.

That’s the DigiLocker ⁠— a platform for digital issuance and verification of documents and certificates. As the name suggests, this is a virtual locker where you can store documents and access whenever needed.​

Since its inception in 2015, the DigiLocker has digitized over 430 million insurance policies, according to the official website. To put things in perspective, the estimated number of in-force life insurance policies in India stands at over 333 million, and the general insurance segment issued over 183 million new policies in the year 2018-19. Data for previous years in the general insurance segment is not available.

If that doesn’t sound impressive, consider the fact that DigiLocker has issued (or made searchable) eAadhaar certificates for 1.2 billion citizens, and the Income Tax Department has provided PAN verification records to over 365 million citizens. This is also according to official data on the the DigiLocker website.

These numbers indicate a growing acceptance of the facility among public and private enterprises. In terms of its scale, coverage of issuers and document types, all on a single public infrastructure platform, there are no significant comparable to the DigiLocker on the world stage.

How The ‘DigiLocker’ Works

DigiLocker enables registered organisations to push electronic copies of documents and certificates directly into citizens’ lockers. Across the financial services segment, insurance companies have been the pioneers in embracing it for commercial use, and an increasing number of them are registering on the platform to add convenience and offer peace of mind to their customers. But this is just the beginning.
According to the latest figures:

• As of June 2020, out of the 58 insurance providers in India, 10 have integrated with DigiLocker.
• Another 29 of them are expected to be a part of DigiLocker’s issuer base soon⁠—this would comprise of 14 life and 15 general/non-life insurance players.
• As of now, 430.86 million digitised policy documents are accessible via DigiLocker.

With more than 38 million registered users, 156 issuers, and 45 requesters, DigiLocker provides access to over 3.7 billion documents in digital format on a single platform. Over the years, the facility has seen healthy and steady growth in the number of issued and searchable documents.

Who Does It Help ?

To fathom its rapid growth in under five years, it is essential to understand its functioning and how it benefits government agencies as well as businesses across industries, especially financial services.

DigiLocker allows cloud-based secure storage, retrieval, and sharing of digital documents. Each user gets a personal space of 1GB. These self-uploaded documents can be digitally signed using the eSign facility, which is similar to the process of self-attestation. It enables public and private document issuers such as central and state education boards, state road transport departments, income tax department, UIDAI, and insurers to make key documents searchable and authenticated by integrating with its standardised and well-documented APIs. An API is an application programming interface, which allows two applications to talk to each.

At its core, the DigiLocker addresses the ‘paperless’ layer of the India Stack, which provides the technology backbone to Digital India initiatives.​

The DigiLocker allows users the convenience of free “anytime, anywhere” access to relevant documents that are legally accepted digital copies, can be e-signed (self-attested), and are easier to e-verify—this makes DigiLocker an impressive infrastructure to further build exciting digital products and services.

In Jan. 2020, the RBI’s amendment to master direction on KYC amended the Prevention of Money Laundering (PML) rules and added that officially valid documents with a valid digital signature, including one issued to a citizen’s digital locker account, is recognized as an equivalent e-document.

With that, RBI effectively approved the use of DigiLocker for the purpose of KYC. In combination with video-based customer identification, the acceptance and approval of DigiLocker for KYC will help FinTech companies and banks simplify and accelerate customer onboarding through better automation. When adopted well, it is expected to bring down their customer acquisition cost significantly, thereby putting them on a faster route to profitability.

The following is a list of the top five issuers and corresponding documents issued by them on DigiLocker, according to an earlier article ‘IndiaStack: Gateway to Opportunities in India by MEDICI.

• Aadhaar by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI)
• The Ministry of Road Transport & Highways: Registration of vehicles, driving license, fitness certificate, and vehicle tax receipt (vehicle tax receipt)
• The New India Assurance Co. Ltd.: Insurance policy certificate
• Income Tax Department: PAN verification record
• The Maharashtra State Board of Secondary & Higher Secondary Education: Education mark sheets and passing certificates

It is important to note that the level of awareness around DigiLocker is currently limited among Indians. These numbers are set to grow exponentially when more people become aware of the facility along with its uses. The financial services ecosystem now needs to play its part and diligently educate and encourage customers to leverage DigiLocker.

A Note Of Caution

That said, readers may be cautioned about security threats around storing documents digitally. One such vulnerability was recently exposed (and quickly fixed too) in its authentication which could have put millions of DigiLocker accounts at risk. Although the authorities have been quick to patch these vulnerabilities from time to time, readers are advised to follow all precautionary measures as directed by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology or MeitY to keep their accounts secure.

After UPI, This Is India’s Other Big Digital Infrastructure Success Story

Since its inception in 2015, the DigiLocker has digitized over 430 million insurance policies, according to the official website.

www.bloombergquint.com

 

[Gautam]

India likely to have UPI-type architecture for instant credit disbursement


"The payment architecture OCEN can truly democratise credit flow, making the process hassle-free," said Nandan Nilekani

Sai Ishwar | Mumbai Last Updated at July 22, 2020 23:48 IST

Nilekani also said that any business can help as a Loan Service Provider (LSP) by embedding customer details through the protocol


India may soon see the emergence of a 'plug and play' protocol on the lines of the Unified Payment Interface (UPI) to extend instant credit to small businesses and vendors. Work on the protocol is underway with multiple stakeholders involved, while industry thinktank iSpirt is leading the initiative.

Speaking at the Global Fintech Fest 2020, Nandan Nilekani, former chairman of UIDAI, and non-executive chairman at Infosys, said, just like UPI, which is a common language for payments, the proposed protocol Open Credit Enablement Network (OCEN) is also a common language between the lenders and borrowers. “It is an architecture that allows you to connect lenders to marketplaces who in turn lend to players in their industry. If this is done, we can truly democratise credit and make sure it reaches small companies and street vendors."

Nilekani also said that any business can help as a Loan Service Provider (LSP) by embedding customer details through the protocol and facilitate small loans for them in near real-time. The infrastructure is also aimed at reducing the cost of lending and solving data asymmetry.

"Small companies and micro-enterprises don't have access to credit while most of the credit goes to large companies in large volumes. The cost of lending is very high in India. Also, data asymmetry has a big impact on the ability to give loans. That's is where account aggregators will help," Nilekani said. “Goods and Services Tax (GST) data can be used by a small business to get a loan and digital payment history can be used to give loans to street vendors,” he said.

The account aggregators are a new class of non-banking financial companies (similar to payment aggregators) approved by the Reserve Bank of India to manage consent for financial data sharing.

Some of the top lenders in the country such as the State Bank of India, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, IDFC First Bank, Axis Bank and Bajaj Finserv have come on board to usher in this new credit paradigm, according to iSpirt website.

The thinktank called the development a “fixed line to mobile telephony” moment for credit borrower referring to the concept of (loan) application to disbursement in five minutes with no human decisions involved.

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) on Wednesday also introduced the UPI AutoPay feature for recurring payments. Payments of up to Rs 2,000 happen through e-mandate while payments above Rs 2,000 require the input of UPI PIN to complete the payment.

India likely to have UPI-type architecture for instant credit disbursement

"The payment architecture OCEN can truly democratise credit flow, making the process hassle-free," said Nandan Nilekani

www.business-standard.com

 

[RISING SUN]

India’s UPI Hits $1.34B In June Transaction Volumes
India has embraced its model for digital payments so much that it intends to take it global.

Since its debut four years ago, India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI), the instant payment system developed by the National Payments Corp. of India (NPCI) that facilitates inter-bank transactions, has propelled the growth of online payments, the Financial Times (FT) reported.

UPI was established by the central bank and is owned by a group of local lenders. Transaction volume of the platform soared to a record 1.34 billion in June as COVID-19 changed behaviors and Indians avoided cash.

Earlier this year, UPI launched a pilot program in Singapore and held talks with the Bank for International Settlements, the World Bank and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to explore possible collaborations, Dilip Asbe, CEO of NPCI told FT.

Asbe also said the initiative, directed at Indians who live in the Southeast Asian country, faces travel restrictions.

“It’s going to be a long-drawn process,” he said.

Neil Shah, an analyst at Counterpoint Research, the Hong Kong-based industry researcher, agreed. He told the newspaper that it will be a challenge to convince other countries to accept UPI because governments prefer regulatory control.

“There’s a huge opportunity,” Shah said. “The challenge is obviously the trust part.”

UPI allows customers to make inexpensive, real-time transfers across bank accounts and to pay for everything from groceries to online services.

Its proponents insist UPI has revolutionized financial inclusion in the county of 1.4 billion, bringing bank accounts to hundreds of millions of residents for the first time.

UPI has attracted investments from Google, Walmart-owned eCommerce startup Flipkart and others.

Asbe told the FT that UPI’s strength was its appeal across India’s fragmented economy, which ranges from poorer communities to wealthy consumers.

“The top end of the market behaves like the western world, and the bottom of the pyramid has similarities with developing or undeveloped economies,” he said. “The country has diverse needs. There are people in villages needing assistance payments. People in cities with a smartphone have different needs.”

Last month, PYMNTS reported the COVID-19 pandemic has primed India to overtake card payments, according to the S&P Global Market Intelligence 2020 India Mobile Payments Market Report.

S&P’s analysis revealed that Indian mobile payment transactions grew 163 percent to $287 billion in 2019. By 2019’s fourth quarter, card and mobile payments had risen in value to roughly 20 percent of India’s gross domestic product.

India’s UPI Hits 1.34B In June Transaction Volumes | PYMNTS.com

India has embraced its model for digital payments so much that it intends to take it global. Since its debut four years ago, India’s Unified Payments

www.pymnts.com

 

[RISING SUN]

India found cybersecurity lapses at National Payments Corporation in 2019: Govt document

The audit, which took place over four months to February 2019, highlighted a lack of encryption of personal data at the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) which forms the backbone of the country's digital payments system and operates the RuPay card network championed by Prime Minister...

m.economictimes.com

 

[Gautam]

NPCI looks to limit UPI dominance by single third-party application, may restrict share of transactions

By Ashwin Manikandan, ET Bureau
Last Updated: Jul 31, 2020, 03:16 PM IST

Synopsis

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is thinking of ways to limit the Unified Payment Interface’s (UPI) dependence on any single third-party application.​

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is thinking of ways to limit the Unified Payment Interface’s (UPI) dependence on any single third-party application. It proposes to do this by restricting the share of transactions of any single payment company, people familiar with the matter said. NPCI owns and operates UPI in the capacity of a not-for-profit "umbrella body".

The burgeoning UPI ecosystem is currently dominated by Google Pay, Paytm, Walmart-owned PhonePe and Amazon Pay, who together control over 90% market share. ET reported in September last year that NPCI could cap the share of transactions at 33% of the overall market share, to insulate the broader UPI ecosystem against any systemic collapse. The discussions have gathered steam over the last couple of months, the people said, and NPCI has held closed-door meetings with payment service provider (PSP) banks, members of UPI’s steering committee and select third-party players to discuss the implementation scope and challenges. One of the ways being considered is to introduce new regulation capping the transaction share at 50% for the first year of implementation and reducing it to 40% and 33%, respectively, over the next two fiscal years, one of the people said.

In case the transactions limit is set to be breached, the NPCI may send warnings to companies to stop onboarding new customers and disable new transactions – else incur a penalty, the person said. The discussions are “a work in progress” and NPCI has not issued any formal circular or internal advisories on how the system will be implemented, another person aware of the matter said. NPCI declined to comment.

“Imagine your payments will be distributed to other players, if you reach a market cap which is not under our control. And, players have to de-facto lose customers because new acquisitions will be stopped,” Sameer Nigam, Founder and CEO of PhonePe said in a written response to ET's queries.

“Also, why hasn’t there been a cap on other payment instruments ? While none of the payment players is in the 50% discussion range, what is of concern is the market cap for the second year, as most of us are nearing the 40% cap. We are still awaiting clarity on this from NPCI,” Nigam added.

The move, if implemented, would be significant from a broader fintech perspective, as it would be the first time that the monopoly risk of big tech firms controlling a systemically important payment channel in India would be addressed at an operational level. The Reserve Bank of India regulates NPCI under the Payment and Settlement Systems Act of 2007. NPCI, in turn, is responsible for daily operation and maintenance of retail payment systems such as UPI, National Financial Switch and IMPS, among others. Recently, RBI reclassified NPCI as a “systematically important Financial Market Infrastructure.”

The fresh round of discussions could also have been triggered amid fears among the NPCI leadership that the payment companies on the UPI network may leverage their expansive customer base to build their own closed-loop payment products, “which would be against the interoperability agreement” that governs the popular payments system, an industry insider said. Meanwhile, the imminent full-scale launch of Facebook-owned WhatsApp’s payment service on UPI has also triggered fresh concerns of monopoly risks among industry stakeholders, the person said.

In March, the RBI-imposed moratorium on Yes Bank had also exposed systemic flaws in the UPI network, which was criticized for being "over-dependent" on a single bank to power over 40% of the transactions. This had prompted NPCI to push payment companies to adopt a multi-bank model. As per a Mint report, published on Thursday, a circular on the matter could be due in the next three months with a cap on transactions implemented retrospectively from the start of the ongoing fiscal year 2021.

UPI was launched in 2016 – the same year as the ban on high-value currency notes and is one of the fastest growing retail payment systems in the world. In June, a record 1.34 billion transactions were processed on the system. The volume of transactions as on July 29, at 1.37 billion, has already exceeded the June volumes, RBI data showed.

NPCI looks to limit UPI dominance by single third-party application, may restrict share of transactions

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is thinking of ways to limit the Unified Payment Interfaces (UPI) dependence on any single third-party application.

economictimes.indiatimes.com

 

[Gautam]

Facebook set to expand WhatsApp's commerce partnerships in India, then take it global

By Megha Mandavia, ET Bureau
Last Updated: Aug 01, 2020, 07:31 AM IST

Synopsis​

In April, Facebook announced investments of $ $5.7 billion in Jio Platforms Limited, part of Reliance Industries Limited, making Facebook its largest minority shareholder. The deal with Jio allowed WhatsApp's integration with JioMart to enable people to connect with businesses, shop and ultimately purchase products in a seamless mobile experience.​

BENGALURU: If the Facebook alliance with Reliance Jio succeeds in onboarding thousands of small businesses onto WhatsApp, the social media giant would seek more partnerships in India, and even take the solution global, said CEO Mark Zuckerberg. In April, WhatsApp, Facebook’s messenger app, tied up with Jio Mart, the ecommerce arm of Reliance Industries, to enable about 30 million kirana stores across India to transact digitally with neighbourhood customers.

The companies hope to extend the digital payments service to farmers, teachers, students and SMEs. "We’re really excited about the opportunity there. And once we prove that out with Jio in India, we’re planning on expanding it to more folks in India and to other countries as well,” Zuckerberg told analysts Thursday.

WhatsApp’s payments feature, WhatsApp Pay, is designed to run on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), developed by the National Payments Corporation of India. The feature allows transfer of funds to individuals as well as business transactions through bank accounts. Facebook is awaiting regulatory permission for a full-fledged rollout in India.

Jio’s partnership with Facebook is being seen as a crucial development that may lead to consolidation in India’s payments sector.

“A big part of the partnership that we have with Jio will be to wire up and get thousands of small businesses across India onboarded onto WhatsApp, to do commerce there,” Zuckerberg said on the call.

The partnership followed Facebook’s $5.7-billion investment in Reliance Industries’ unit Jio Platforms, making the Palo Alto-based company its largest minority shareholder.

The deal enables WhatsApp’s integration with JioMart and allows people to connect with businesses and purchase products in a seamless mobile experience. Facebook’s deal with JioMart to use the WhatsApp messenger for shopping is nonexclusive, said sources. A spokesperson for Facebook declined to comment. Reliance Jio did not respond to queries.

The social media giant is betting on messaging commerce — enabling customers to shop online using the WhatsApp messenger and integrating payments with it. It is aimed largely at developing countries.

“It’s very connected to what I was just talking about around messaging commerce. A lot of people use WhatsApp, especially in India. There’s a huge opportunity to enable small businesses and individuals in India to buy and sell things through WhatsApp. We want to enable that. That starts with enabling payments,” Zuckerberg told analysts. He added that a lot of small businesses in developing countries conduct business over Facebook Messenger, or over WhatsApp.

“In the medium term, I think, the way that we’re probably going to build a business around that,” he said. Last week, WhatsApp’s India head Abhijit Bose said the messaging platform plans to offer credit, insurance and pension products to low income individuals and those in rural areas, and help digitise small and medium businesses.

Facebook Inc beat analyst estimates for quarterly revenue, as more businesses used its digital advertising tools to tap a surge in online traffic during the coronavirus pandemic. Total revenue rose to $18.69 billion from $16.89 billion in the second quarter ended June 30, beating analyst estimates of $17.40 billion.

Facebook set to expand WhatsApp's commerce partnerships in India, then take it global

In April, Facebook announced investments of $ $5.7 billion in Jio Platforms Limited, part of Reliance Industries Limited, making Facebook its largest minority shareholder. The deal with Jio allowed WhatsApp's integration with JioMart to enable people to connect with businesses, shop and...

economictimes.indiatimes.com

 

[RISING SUN]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1290129526534463491