BoB partners Truecaller for UPI payments

Mumbai: Bank of Baroda (BoB) has tied-up with

True Software Scandinavia

— the company behind caller-ID app

Truecaller

— to enable

digital payments

using

BHIM Baroda Pay UPI Service

. Truecaller has gone live with its account-to-account payment service, ahead of WhatsApp, as it is fully compliant with the Reserve Bank of India’s (

RBI’s

) data localisation norms.

In terms of the tie-up, those who register for payments under the UPI platform through the Truecaller app will get a @barodapay handle — the address for receiving or sending money from their bank accounts. This partnership by Truecaller is in addition to its tie-up with ICICI Bank. Earlier this year, Truecaller had acquired fintech app

Chillr

to get a foothold in the payment space.

BoB head fintech and new business initiatives Akhil Handa said, “We are getting in people who have been outside of the e- payments system in a frictionless way as many phone users already have Truecaller app installed.” He added that this works as a customer acquisition strategy for the bank as most of those who are joining are non-BoB customers.

“Almost 50% of customers coming on board are fresh to digital payments. This is the first time that they are using UPI and they are trying it out,” said Sony Joy, VP, Truecaller Pay India. Joy was the co-founder of Chillr.

According to Handa, getting a customer to download a new app and making sure that he has use cases to keep engaging with the app is a tall task. “In the longer run, we feel that the UPI apps by payment service providers will be more successful and that is already being reflected in the market share,” said Handa. At present 70% of UPI transactions are taking place through non-bank apps which include

PhonePe

, Paytm and Google Tez.