Comviva Unveils Mobiquity Deployment; PhonePe Teams Up With Railroad In India

Welcome to The Axis, your late look at payments news from around the world. Coverage includes Comviva’s deployment of mobiquity in Columbia. In addition, PhonePe is teaming up with the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) for mobile payments in India, and the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has rolled out a new version of the Unified Payments Interface (UPI).

Comviva’s mobiquity Money platform is now used to power digital financial service MOVii in Columbia, the company said in an announcement. The service, which was rolled out in mid-July, enables Colombians to pay utility bills, purchase digital content or recharge mobile services from their Android devices. The idea behind the service is to serve both the banked and unbanked.

“In the past decade, mobqiuity® Money has helped many countries to bring millions of their unbanked citizens under formal financial systems and increase financial inclusion,” Comviva Chief Executive Officer Manoranjan Mohapatra said in the announcement. “We are bringing our global experience of leveraging mobile money to create financial inclusion to Colombia, where 54 percent of adults are unbanked.”

In other news, PhonePe is working with the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) to help customers make digital payments on the company’s mobile app, India Today reported. With the tie-up, more than 100 million users of PhonePe will be able to pay for travel through digital wallets, credit cards, debit cards and Unified Payments Interface (UPI).

“Through this partnership, we aim to boost digital payments across India,” PhonePe Head of Strategy and Planning Karthik Raghupathy told the outlet. “PhonePe offers IRCTC users the choice of using UPI, along with all the other payment methods available on the app, for quick and hassle-free payments.”

And the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has rolled out Unified Payments Interface (UPI) 2.0, according to reports. The new version comes with features such as “invoice in the inbox” and an overdraft facility. As of now, 11 banks use the updated version: State Bank of India, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank are among the institutions supporting UPI 2.0.

In other news, Sri Lanka-based Cargills Bank Limited is teaming up with Ripple for cross-border payments, FX Compared reported. Cargills Bank COO Rohan Muttiah said, “joining RippleNet allows remittance agents and banks to leap-frog sources of friction and complexity in inward remittances, while offering beneficiaries unparalleled access to their funds through Cargills Food City supermarkets.”