Chennai: The digital payments platform promoted by the Indian government, BHIM (Bharat Interface for Money) is betting on merchant and utility bill payments to expand its acceptance across the country.While it had started on the UPI (Unified Payments Interface) journey early, with a push from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it has
consistently been losing market share to private peers such as Paytm, PhonePe and Google Pay. Since it cannot offer heavy cashback or discounts like others, it has embarked on multiple merchant tie-ups to offer attractive discounts to customers.
National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which developed the UPI and is the umbrella organisation for all retail payments in India. NPCI said that its focus now is to get more merchants across online and offline to start accepting BHIM and thereby help increase stickiness among customers. Further offers and promotions will help it expand usage. It is also relying on the propagation of Bharat QR codes in the offline segment to build acceptance.
“Current promotional offers range from categories and merchants like Amazon, FoodPanda, Faasos, Box8, NetMeds, SpiceJet, Cinepolis, Thomas Cook, OYO and others,” said the NPCI spokesman according to reports.