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. 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.
