The upheaval caused due to the restrictions imposed on Paytm by the RBI will open up opportunities for other ecosystem participants, according to Parag Rao, Country Head – Payments, Liabilities Products, Consumer Finance & Marketing, HDFC Bank.

Any such event which impacts a rival is advantageous to other players as smart customers realign themselves, said Rao.

Traction for Fastag, prepaid card offerings and sound boxes remains strong, he said, adding that HDFC Bank’s payments app and merchant business has also seen higher demand.

“Paytm (One 97) has been a partner over the years for our acceptance business for our aggregator business. Under the current circumstances, we don’t know too much about what is happening, but we are talking, we are waiting and watching to see how events develop,” he said.

new version of app

On the bank’s tech update, Rao said it will launch a new version of the app in two months, which will be superior in terms of offerings and customisation.

Rao was speaking at an event to launch a range of business credit cards customised for business owners, professionals, entrepreneurs and freelancers, in a drive to expand its SME Payment Solutions.  The cards will have four variants — ‘BizFirst’, ‘BizGrow’, ‘BizPower’, and ‘BizBlack’ and offer interest-free credit cycle of 55 days. The joining fees is up to ₹10,000.

HDFC Bank had first launched a dedicated SME credit card over two years ago, where it has over 35 lakh cards in force, said Rao, adding that the bank has incorporated the learnings from this business to introduce the new offerings.

The cards will offer savings on core business spends like utility bills, GST, income tax, vendor payments, business travel, and business productivity tools through reward points on business spends, insurance package and EMI and loan on card facility. 

The bank will also shortly launch GIGA Business Credit Card for freelancers and gig workers, which is “a new emerging segment in self-employed category”.

To address both payable and receivable needs of businesses, the bank has introduced a digital platform, which consolidates all payables such as vendor payments, utility bills, and statutory payments and helps manage and optimise end-to-end supply-chain arrangements and reconciliation on the receivable side. Currently, 6,500 corporates make payments to over 14,000 registered vendors on the platform, facilitating total spends of ₹82,000 crore since November 2021.

HDFC Bank leads the commercial spends market with 45 per cent market share as of December 2023. It has 5.3 crore debit cards as of January 2024, and 2 crore credit cards wherein it had the largest market share by spends of 27.1 per cent as of December 2023.

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