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India’s first multi-bank mobile payment platform Chillr is all set to launch its Unified Payments Interface (UPI) facility by March-end, which will enable customers of nearly 45 banks to make payments on a single platform.
“We will meet bank officials in a couple of days for deciding the date of launch,” Sony Joy, CEO and Co-Founder, Chillr, told BusinessLine on Monday.
Chillr is a multi-bank mobile banking app that enables users to send and receive money to/from anyone in their phone book. It differs from online wallets as all fund transactions are between bank accounts.
He said around 1.50 crore customers are expected to on-board this platform by the end of 2017-18. “Our annual run-rate (transaction) is also expected to go up from $1 billion (around ₹6,600 crore) now to $12 billion (nearly ₹80,000 crore) per annum.”
Also, Joy said, once customers get used to it and are assured of safety, the transaction values would go up exponentially.
UPI is a system that powers multiple bank accounts into a single mobile application (of any participating bank), merging several banking features, seamless fund routing and merchant payments into one hood.
It also caters to the “peer-to-peer” collect request which can be scheduled and paid as per requirement and convenience.
National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which developed the UPI, conducted a pilot launch with 21 member-banks in April 2016. It was launched by the then RBI Governor, Raghuram Rajan, in Mumbai. From August 2016, banks started uploading their UPI-enabled apps on Google Play Store.
While digital transaction volumes across payment platforms have came down due to the cash crunch easing out, Chillr has been able to maintain its momentum and grow consistently, Roy said.
In the September 2016-January 2017 period, its transactions grew four-fold and crossed ₹500-crore mark in in January 2017 — an over 10-fold increase in the last 12 months.
Chillr, which had tied up with 10 banks on the Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) platform, an instant inter-bank electronic fund transfer service through mobile banking, currently enjoys over a million active users of the app.
Recent reports suggest that 50 per cent of mobile wallet users do not have any balance in their wallets and the remaining users have an average balance of less than ₹50. This shows that customers like to hold money in their bank accounts.
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