India Central Bank Clears Infibeam For B2B Payments Launch

India’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), has cleared the way for eCommerce company Infibeam to launch a B2B payments service, according to news from Inc42.

Infibeam is looking to integrate B2B payments capabilities into its existing CCAvenue payments platform in order to allow corporates to pay their utility bills and other invoices, unnamed sources said. The initiative would see Infibeam integrate the Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS) into the payments platform.

An unnamed source told the publication, “With both payment gateways — CCAvenue and BBPS — in the kitty, Infibeam wallet would be in a position to make all utility bill payments as well as private bill payments.”

The unconfirmed reports follow Infibeam’s release of its latest earnings report, which posted a net profit of $3.3 million for the second quarter of FY2018, reports said. Infibeam attributed its growth to heightened focus on its Infibeam Web Services unit.

Other firms have similarly made recent moves to introduce new B2B payments solutions for Indian businesses.

Earlier this year, American Express rolled out its own corporate payments solution, the Buyer Initiated Payment platform, to help Indian businesses pay suppliers via Amex card products. Reports at the time said the launch was partially in response to the nation’s demonetization efforts that have forced companies large and small to let go of paper money and adopt ePayments.

In another B2B payments initiative for the country, last year 4TiGo expanded in the market to tackle fragmented B2B payments in the logistics space. The company is collaborating with the Federal Bank to implement a B2B payments infrastructure aimed at streamlining B2B logistics payments, reports said at the time.