India

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.

Future Retail Ltd., India’s biggest department store chain that gained from the government’s surprise currency clampdown, still has room to extend the rally that’s more than doubled its market value this year.

Companies that allow merchants to quickly set up card acceptance through mobile technology are rushing to fill a void in the Indian market following the country's dramatic shift in cash policy.

Wells Fargo & Co. is expanding its ExpressSend remittance payout network in India to include Axis Bank and, beginning next month, expanding a free-transfer promotion previously available only for those sending at least $500.

The next phase of India’s national digital payments initiative begins next month when 20 banks launch Aadhaar Pay, an app enabling merchants to accept payments on smartphones from consumers using biometric authentication.

Swedish startup Truecaller has become the newest entrant in India’s busy digital payments space, via a tie-up with ICICI Bank Ltd. to offer a local mobile-payments service.

Mastercard and Samsung India have partnered to roll out Samsung Pay to millions of customers of Indian banks.

Chillr, one of India’s growing number of mobile payment apps enabling person-to-person payments between customers of different banks, is expanding to 45 banks in the country.

Flipkart Online Services Pvt has completed a $1 billion fundraising and aims to raise as much as $1 billion more over the next few months, according to people familiar with the matter, giving India’s largest e-commerce company capital to battle back against rising competition.

By now most of the world knows of the disruption India's monetary system has undergone as its government discourages paper cash and pushes digital alternatives, stopping short of outright forcing the issue. But there's another challenge within the market.

The Indian government's major change in cash policy and push for digital payments attracted the Chinese company to increase its stake in India's Paytm.