Axis Bank of India has had a busy few days as it provided details on new banking technology it was integrating for its retail clients.
The first feature was the release of ‘Ping Pay’. The new product enables customers to use social networks messaging tools such as WhatsAp, Facebook and Twitter along with email and phone numbers to send peer to peer Payments . The new Ping Pay network was developed using technology from Fastacash. A Singapore based firm, Fastacash provides solutions for social network payments for banks, telecom companies, and remittance operators.
According to Axis Bank, they believe that the rollout of Ping Pay will help advance objectives in India of the country becoming a ‘cashless society’. In this regard, Axis Bank’ second product launch last week was NFC enabled credit cards. The cards allow for ‘tap and go’ payments and are expected to increase checkout speeds at merchants. The rollout of the NFC cards comes as the Reserve Bank of India tweaked security rules governing NFC based payments to make them more accommodating to be released by banks and available for merchant.
In relation to the twin features being introduced by Axis Bank, they are part of an emerging trend of Indian banks to integrate financial technology to enable greater effeciency in the domestic payments industry. Commenting about the advancement in mobile payments, Vince Tallent, Chairman & CEO of Fastacash stated “India is one of the fastest growing social and messaging markets, with most of these services being accessed from mobile devices. The Indian consumer is looking for new and innovative ways to interact with payments and this is evident from the growth in the number of mobile wallet services being made available in India.
