Truecaller strengthens digital payments service, ties up with Bank of Baroda

In another partnership aimed at strengthening its financial services, Swedish caller identification app Truecaller has tied up with state-run Bank of Baroda (BoB) for digital payments backed by Unified Payments Interface (UPI).

The partnership comes almost one and a half years after the caller ID firm partnered ICICI Bank for digital payments. While Truecaller is busy strengthening its financial division in India, rivals iPhone maker Apple and messaging platform WhatsApp are still struggling to comply with data localisation norms, let alone launch payment services.

In June 2018, Sweden-headquartered Truecaller acquired multi-bank payments app Chillr.
“At present, we are having more than 150 million users on Truecaller in India and over 300 tie-ups to enable Truecaller Payments. Our aim is to on-board as many users as possible and popularise UPI services,” said Sony Joy, head of Truecaller Pay & Financial Services.

The current partnership with BoB allows users of Truecaller app to perform financial transactions instantly. The app will provide various features like ‘check balance’, ‘send money’, ‘request money’, ‘pay via QR code’ and ‘pay using IFSC (Indian Financial System Code)’.

Users who register for payments on the UPI platform through the Truecaller app will get a @barodapay handle, the address for receiving or sending money from their bank accounts, said a report in The Economic Times.

According to the BoB statement, users can also view transaction history, manage account and check pending requests. The payment receipt can be shared with WhatsApp contacts instantly.

Truecaller app will be powered by BoB’s API (application programming interface) management layer, which will fetch customer details for registration from the bank’s system, the statement added.