Paytm likely to sign HDFC Bank as third partner for migrating merchants: Report
Paytm’s parent company One97 Communications Ltd is likely to sign HDFC Bank as the third partner for migrating merchants, said a report by Moneycontrol on Wednesday. Axis Bank and Yes Bank have already been signed by Paytm as merchant acquiring partners. Both the banks went live on the Paytm UPI platform on March 15.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had asked Paytm Payments Bank Limited (PPBL) to stop all banking operations from March 15. However, the RBI has allowed OCL merchants and UPI users to continue using their handles, QR codes, and point-of-sale (PoS) machines even after March 15 to avoid any disruption to merchant and consumer payments.
The digital payments company is also in talks with Canara Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank for merchant acquisition business, said the report.
According to the report, HDFC Bank and SBI are likely to go live this week as payment service provider (PSP) banks for Paytm’s third party application provider (TPAP) business.
Citing a banking source, the report said: “Yes Bank has taken ownership of the maintenance of PPBL’s PSP banking services.”
The One97 Communications platform has an estimated 3 crore merchants and an estimated 9 crore UPI users.
According to National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) website, Paytm will work as a third-party app (TPAP) and facilitate UPI transactions through the partner banks. It has got five handles in partnership with four banks to continue UPI transactions.
The company’s existing handle @paytm is among the five handles that users can continue using without the need to make any changes at their end.
The NPCI has approved @paytm and a closed user group UPI handle @ptyes for Paytm in partnership with Yes Bank.
It has also approved @pthdfc with HDFC bank and @ptsbi with State Bank of India as a partner. However, these two handles are not active yet.