Truecaller set to make deals with Chillr to foray into digital payments

Sony Joy will be the vice-president of Truecaller Pay

 

Technology News : Phone number search engine Truecaller on Wednesday announced a strategic investment into the payments space in India by acquiring Chillr, the country’s first multi-bank payments app.

Truecaller co-founder and chief strategy officer Nami Zarringhalam said the founders of Chillr — Sony Joy, Anoop Sankar, Mohamed Galib and Lishoy Bhaskaran — will join Truecaller.

Sony Joywill be the vice-president of Truecaller Pay.

Zarringhalam said the company intended to leverage its full reach of over 150 million users in India as well as its 300-plus existing partnerships in the country.

“By acquiring Chillr, we are reaffirming our commitment to mobile payments and strengthening our plans to raise its adoption amongst our user base,” Zarringhalam said.

He, however, did not disclose the amount paid and the terms and conditions for acquiring the Chillr, which was launched in 2014.

Truecaller has 65 employees in India.

Chillr co-founder Sony Joy said: “While ICICI partnership is already there with Truecaller, going forward we will have multiple bank partnerships also. We are doing a multi-bank model with UPI. So you will see lot more banks on the platform working closely with us.”

On the issue of privacy getting breached and wrong details fed into Truecaller’s system, Zarringhalam said: “What started to happen was that people started tagging other users. That was an issue.

A couple of months back we rolled out the capabilities of users themselves being able to determine what their types were.”

BHIM: Aadhaar-based app launched to simplify digital payments

BHIM is biometric version of UPI, USSD and expected to minimise role of plastic cards, PoS machines

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday launched an Aadhaar-based mobile payment application called BHIM (Bharat Interface for Money).

On day 50 of the window provided by the government to citizens to exchange or deposit old currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denominations, the Prime Minister at a 'Digi Dhan Mela' event in the capital, asked citizens to make at least five digital transactions, so as to understand the concept behind e-payments, and then use it extensively.

"Download it on a smartphone or on a feature phone. It is not necessary to have the internet for this app. In the next two weeks, one more work is being done, which will increase the power of BHIM so much that you would be able to withdraw money even with your fingerprints," he said.

BHIM is a biometric and rebranded version of UPI (Unified Payment Interface) and USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data). It is expected to minimise the role of plastic cards and point-of-sale machines, once believed essential for a less-cash society.

"In two weeks, we will make one more accomplishment; its security is being worked on. It will empower BHIM; you'll only require your thumb to pay," said Modi. He added this app would empower the poorest of the poor, with the thumb becoming the new identity.

The app is supposed to aid in digital payments of people who have a bank account but either do not have debit or credit cards or are unable to use these. At present, it is available only on the Android mobile operating system. It can be downloaded by merchants and used with a biometric reader, currently available for Rs 2,000. A customer only needs to use his or her fingerprint to pay from an Aadhaar-linked account.

The app would eliminate the fee payments for service providers like card companies such as MasterCard or Visa.

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Are we moving to a cashless society?

Many consumers in metros have seen their cash transactions go down significantly because of growing e-commerce, expansion of mobile wallets and online banking.

This is only the start of a march towards becoming a cashless society. Things are expected to change dramatically in a few years for urban consumers. Many entities are working on different electronic payment mechanisms that can usher in a digital payment revolution.

Wallet companies are aggressively tying up with retailers to let customers use mobile payments. National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), a company promoted by banks, is working on a mechanism that will allow consumers to transfer money and make payments almost as easily as they send a text message.Read More