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ICICI Bank, the country’s largest private sector bank, said on Tuesday that it has crossed the milestone of 1 lakh virtual payment addresses (VPA) on ‘Unified Payments Interface’ (UPI) within three weeks of its launch. This bank is the first-to-do-so.
In a bid to further enhance the usage of UPI, the bank has also announced partnership with Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Ltd (ABFRL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) to offer UPI-based payments at its retail outlets, making it the largest forthcoming deployment of in-store payments using UPI.
With this, customers of any bank, who have created their VPA on ‘pockets’, as well as ICICI Bank customers using ‘iMobile’ can soon pay using their smartphone at over 6,500 HPCL petrol pumps and more than 2,000 stores of ABFRL across the country.
Commenting on the development, Chanda Kochhar, Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer, ICICI Bank, said that the bank would continue to explore more such potential partnerships which will go a long way in popularising the usage of UPI.
“We have received encouraging response from users, including non-ICICI Bank customers, for creating their VPA using Pockets’. I believe that UPI will revolutionise the landscape of electronic payments in India and go a long way in reducing the usage of cash in the economy,” she said.
A P Hota, Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer, NPCI, said that ICICI Bank was among the first set of banks to launch UPI through app. “We are glad to see such impressive acceptance in such a short span of time”, Hota said.
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