NPCI Bharat BillPay Partners MyJio & Arzooo To Foray Into The B2B Space

In a bid to diversify offerings, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI)-backed Bharat BillPay on Thursday (October 19) announced its foray into the B2B space with the launch of multiple value-added services. 

NPCI Bharat BillPay will offer tailored products such as flexible invoice presentation, complaint management, and MIS, among other things.

Under the new vertical, the platform will look to onboard big-ticket sellers, such as manufacturers and distributors, as billers. Thereafter, these billers will be able to leverage Bharat BillPay-enabled channels and modes to facilitate payments from buyers such as retailers and shopkeepers in lieu of goods and services. 

The Bharat BillPay-enabled sellers will be able to issue multiple invoices to their buyers while their clients (buyers) will have the flexibility to pay multiple invoices in a single transaction. The platform will also offer multiple payment modes such as UPI, net banking, cards, wallet, IMPS and cash, including other channels such as mobile app and website.

“The category is going live for the first time on the MyJio app for the Biller Arzooo with Axis Bank as the Biller Operating Unit (BOU),” NPCI Bharat BillPay said in a statement.

Commenting on the launch, NPCI Bharat BillPay CEO Noopur Chaturvedi said, “… By onboarding onto our platform, these businesses will effectively make their entire bill payments process seamless and secure. At Bharat BillPay, we are committed to our efforts in continuing to augment our already extensive line of products and services for the benefit of all stakeholders.”

The new offering will enable NPCI Bharat BillPay to explore the B2B segment and deepen its presence among high-volume merchants. The platform also aims to streamline payment systems for businesses while catering to the cash flow needs of the B2B segment. 

The NPCI hived off NPCI Bharat BillPay Limited as a separate entity in early 2021. Since then, it has emerged as a one-stop solution for billers for low-cost collections and payments. It also offers recurring payment services to customers across several segments. 

NPCI Bharat BillPay currently claims to offer more than 20,000 billers across multiple banks and non-banking channels and has over 900 agent institutions live on the platform.

The new launch comes at a time when the parent NPCI is seen announcing a slew of new offerings to deepen the penetration of digital payments in the country in a bid to shore up the local payments infrastructure. 

Just last month, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) permitted the Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS) to facilitate payment of utility bills by non-resident Indians (NRIs). The payments corporation has also been working to integrate the state-backed AI-powered translation platform BHASHa INterface for India (Bhashini) with the UPI to enable conversational payments in Indian languages.

As a result, the consumer-facing UPI has seen a surge in numbers. The platform logged the second consecutive month of more than 1,000 Cr transactions in September, processing 1,056 Cr transactions worth INR 15.8 Lakh Cr.