India

Competition between card networks, tech titans Facebook and Google, Chinese fintech proxies Paytm and Hike, and M-Pesa will be fierce, and offer signs how other large emerging payments markets may evolve, writes Eric Grover, a principal at Intrepid Ventures.

An integration with transfer company bux will remove navigation and manual processes for remittances to India.

In India, dLocal wants to enable global e-commerce companies to accept payments from and make payments to India to serve consumers, contractors and supply chains.

Uber India this week announced its integration with Unified Payments Interface (UPI), the mobile payments technology developed by the government-sanctioned National Payments Corporation of India and two local banks, expanding mobile payments access to Uber riders and drivers.

E-commerce cross-border payments provider dLocal has updated its platform in India, enabling global e-merchants to accept and remit payments through all local methods and target the mobile consumer in the country.

Mastercard and Visa have also opened development centers in India, where digital payments are growing quickly.

In the next phase of India’s push to diminish the country’s heavy reliance on cash, the Reserve Bank of India has approved the rollout of a national electronic bill-payment system.

Next month, India Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government will begin amassing a warehouse of virtual information collected not just from traditional sources like banks but also from social media sites, as it looks to match residents’ spending patterns with income declarations, said people familiar with the matter.

At least one winner has emerged from India’s crackdown on so-called black money: the country’s richest banker.

Snapdeal’s co-founders are resisting the latest acquisition bid from rival Flipkart Online Services Pvt. and the company’s board plans to let all shareholders vote on the offer to reach a final resolution, according to people familiar with the matter.

Paytm Ecommerce Pvt., the latest entrant into India’s online retailing market, is taking a hard line with suspect merchants to avoid backer Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s reputation as a haven for fakes.

India is considering tracking digital currencies like bitcoin through the central bank and capital markets regulator along with intelligence agencies to monitor money laundering and terrorist financing, people with the knowledge of the matter said.

Payments technology provider Cardtek and partner Axis Bank have launched a national open-loop payment system featuring a contactless card for public transportation and other purchases in India.

Google's Android Pay is moving closer to its launch in India, pending approval by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), as more U.S.-based companies including Uber and Amazon work to add technology supporting India’s central bank-approved unified payments interface (UPI) to their portals.

India’s largest digital-payments company, Paytm, is seeking a license to set up a money market fund where users can store cash and earn interest, in competition with the country’s banks, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Hike Messenger has become the latest to join India’s already busy digital-payments segment.

One MobiKwik Systems Pvt., one of India’s largest digital-payment providers, is pushing back its target for profitability by a year as it invests more in its business to capitalize on the government’s shock ban on high-value rupee notes.

Ria Money Transfer is significantly expanding its presence in India through partnerships with three leading cash remittance payout agents with broad reach within India, the world’s largest recipient of migrant remittances.

Paytm, India’s largest digital payments startup, raised $1.4 billion from SoftBank Group Corp. in the largest funding round from a single investor for the country’s technology sector.

The company's original markets are India and China, but it plans to reach 10 major markets for B-to-B cross-border payments in the next year.