Paytm, HDFC Bank tie up to develop payment products for new online ventures

While HDFC Bank will drive merchant partnerships to whom Paytm will offer its existing Android PoS devices, the two will also jointly launch a co-branded retail PoS product

IPO-bound digital payments firm Paytm and India’s largest private sector bank, HDFC Bank, announced a strategic partnership to build comprehensive solutions across payment gateway, point of sale machines and credit products including Paytm Postpaid which is Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) solution, Eazy EMI and Flexi Pay.

The partnership will aim to empower new businesses which have recently ventured online, and enable them to scale up.

Paytm and HDFC Bank are coming together for two broad PoS offerings.

In the first, HDFC Bank will drive merchant partnerships across India, to whom Paytm will offer its existing range of Android POS devices.

As part of this, HDFC Bank's salespersons will start selling Paytm’s payment solutions in the market. HDFC Bank will be the payment partner, while Paytm will be the distribution and software partner.

Secondly, Paytm and HDFC Bank will jointly launch a co-branded PoS product in the retail segment, which Paytm will have the option to offer it to its own customer base.

“Paytm’s reach in the offline and online merchant space and HDFC Bank’s retail influence will aim for dynamic growth in the payments space. Paytm has a history of launching innovative products that have made way for adoption of retail payments among various merchant partners. This partnership aims to bring innovative products focusing on affordability,” said Renu Satti, COO, Offline Payments.

The partnership marks a big change from 2017 for HDFC Bank, when its then India Managing Director Aditya Puri had said payment wallets like Paytm have no future.

Paytm’s offerings have also expanded since then. In the same year, Paytm got the license to operate as a payments bank.

The coming together of HDFC Bank’s network, products and credit appraisal capabilities and Paytm’s technological platform will accelerate digital transformation in semi-urban and rural India, while bringing more people into formal banking channels, the firms said in a joint statement.

“As India’s largest issuing and acquiring bank, we have always endeavoured to personalise our offerings to customers-consumers, businesses and corporate houses. Through this partnership we will also be jointly delivering enhanced SmartHub solutions to the market. We believe that this is the start of a great partnership and the cumulative strength of both HDFC Bank and Paytm will help us strengthen our respective leadership positions,” said Parag Rao, Group Head–Payments, Consumer Finance, Digital Banking & IT, HDFC Bank.

HDFC Bank SmartHub solutions is an integrated platform offering merchants a one stop solution shop for all their business needs-payments, banking, lending and segment specific business solutions.