PayU Launches Agent HQ to Empower SMBs with AI-Driven Commerce Control

• PayU Agent HQ enables SMB merchants to get discovered by AI shopping agents, grow sales, simplify day-to-day payment-related operations, and build their own custom AI assistants

PayU, India’s leading diversified fintech platform, announced the launch of its Agent HQ, an AI agent store for Indian SMB merchants, where they can choose and deploy an agent for each job in commerce - from making their business discoverable to AI shopping agents and driving growth, to simplifying payment-related everyday operations and powering their own conversational AI experiences.

As AI reshapes how consumers discover and buy, businesses, especially SMB businesses, need to find ways to be relevant in this new commerce era. Industry reports suggest that about 50% of search traffic is shifting to AI agents and AI-referred shoppers converting up to three times better. To enable these merchants with a level playing field, PayU designed its Agent HQ. This is built on more than a decade of commerce intelligence generated across a platform that powers 4.5 lakh+ merchants, 700+ million shoppers’ journey, and has processed ₹7,800 billion in transaction volume.

AI-referred shoppers convert better and spend more (2026) - Shopify

"As a merchant aggregator, PayU has been supporting merchants not just to collect payments but to grow their businesses through its value-added solutions. PayU Agent HQ builds on that foundation and expands on our value-added offerings for SMB merchants. By putting a personalized team of AI agents to work across the business - from improving discoverability and driving growth to managing chargebacks, reconciliations, refunds, settlements, etc. - we want to put control back in merchants' hands, enabling them to focus on their growth. Agent HQ is one of our biggest bets in that direction,” said Manas Mishra, Chief Product Officer, PayU & Wibmo

PayU Agent HQ brings together a suite of AI agents for merchants to achieve the following two outcomes:

• Building an AI-ready growth engine: PayU merchants can make their products, services, and business discoverable and transactable on AI platforms like Claude and ChatGPT as well as channels such as WhatsApp through Agent HQ. Merchants also have an option to custom create their conversational AI assistants that work across their websites, apps and customer journeys, providing real-time assistance to shoppers and responding to post-purchase queries.
• Running the business efficiently: Agent HQ offers a suite of AI agents that merchants can choose from to automate complex operational tasks like transaction follow-ups, chargeback reconciliations, refund escalations and settlements. Drawing on merchant transaction data, including payment success and failure patterns, chargeback histories, settlement cycles and shopper behaviour, these agents can also act as growth enablers and suggest targeted campaigns across sales, marketing, and other functions. This helps merchants manage fraud and disputes proactively, reduce operational effort, and protect revenue.

The No-Code, Zero-Integration Flow:

Unlike standalone tools that require merchants to connect data sources, configure workflows or build integrations, PayU's Agent HQ is a no-code AI agent storefront, already built into PayU merchant dashboard. Merchants can hire an AI agent in a few clicks; select how frequently it runs and monitor its activity through dashboard and receive outputs delivered through email and WhatsApp. No agent acts beyond the boundaries and limits defined by merchants.

Agent HQ represents PayU’s approach to building practical, outcome-oriented AI experiences for merchants across the full commerce journey- not just payments alone. Policybazaar, Daily Objects, Pinq Polka, and many more PayU merchants are already on Agent HQ, leveraging the power of AI agents to drive their commerce story.

About PayU

PayU, India's leading diversified fintech platform with Prosus as an investor, operates businesses that are regulated by the Reserve Bank of India and offers advanced solutions to meet the digital financial services needs of customers (merchants, banks, and consumers). PayU provides payment gateway solutions to online businesses through its cutting-edge and award-winning technology and has empowered 4.5 lakhs+ businesses, including India’s leading enterprises, e-commerce giants and SMBs. It enables businesses to collect digital payments across 100+ online payment methods such as Credit Cards, Debit Cards, Net Banking, EMIs, pay-later, QR, UPI, Wallets, and more. It’s a preferred partner in the affordability ecosystem, offering the maximum coverage of issuers and easy-to-implement integrations across card-based EMIs, pay-later options and new-age cardless EMIs. PayU offers e-commerce brands best-in-industry success rates while ensuring a seamless checkout experience.

PayU Unveils AI-Native Builder MCP and CLI Tools to Revolutionize Payment Integrations and Operations

• PayU CLI brings payment management and operational workflows to a single command terminal, enabling creation of payment links, query generation, settlement reports, etc. without any dashboard navigation.
• PayU Builder MCP enables developers and AI builders with production-grade code, powering payment gateway integrations in hours instead of days.

PayU, India's leading diversified fintech platform, today announced the launch of two powerful developer tools designed for modern payment workflows: PayU CLI, a command-line interface designed for payments management and operations and Builder MCP, an AI-native server enabling faster and seamless payment gateway integrations. The tools address two distinct challenges facing modern development teams - integrating payment gateway quickly and managing payment operations efficiently without dashboard dependency.

PayU Builder MCP is designed for developers and AI builders looking to integrate PayU's payment gateway quickly and efficiently. By connecting AI-coding assistants such as Cursor, VS Code and Claude Desktop to PayU's APIs, Builder MCP can generate production-ready integration code in 7+ languages, including PHP, JavaScript, Java, Python, Kotlin and Swift. Unlike traditional documentation or sample code repositories, it delivers production-ready code with error handling, webhook verification, and security best practices built in. Developers can browse integration catalogues, retrieve platform-specific code and search documentation semantically without leaving their IDE, thereby, enabling integrations in hours rather than days.

On the other hand, PayU CLI is built for developers and operations teams that manage payment workflows on a day-to-day basis. Instead of navigating multiple complex web dashboards, teams can perform operational tasks directly from the command line. Using PayU CLI, users can create and send payment links, search and filter transactions, process refunds, review settlements, and generate reports through terminal commands. The tool also supports multi-account management and seamless switching between test and production environments, making it particularly useful for DevOps teams to manage multiple merchants.

"AI has fundamentally transformed software development and AI agents have become a more nuanced part of everyday developer workflows. Merchants and their tech teams are now looking for a payment partner that provides lightning-fast product integrations, operational flexibility and enhances developer productivity. Our new CLI and Builder MCP tools solve for each of these requirements by bringing PayU’s payment infrastructure to where developers work - in the terminal. This is just first of our steps in this direction”, said Narendra Babu, CTO, PayU. 

While the two tools address a different use case, they complement one another across the payment lifecycle. Developers can use Builder MCP during implementation to generate integration code through their AI assistants and deploy payment experiences faster. Once live, teams can use PayU CLI to manage operational workflows such as transaction monitoring, payment link creation, settlement tracking and refunds, all without leaving the terminal.

Here's a typical workflow: A developer at merchant’s end using Cursor asks Builder MCP for PayU checkout integration code and receives copy-paste-ready JavaScript with error handling, shipping the integration from days to within hours. Whereas, the operations team managing multiple merchant accounts uses PayU CLI for routine operations by simply giving instant commands from the terminal without dashboard navigation, like – create an INR 5,000 payment link or check transaction status or get yesterday’s settlement, etc.

Flipkart Introduces Fingerprint & Face ID Payments with Axis Bank, PayU

• Flipkart has become one of the leading Indian e-commerce platforms to offer biometric authentication for card payments, powered by PayU & Axis Bank
• Customers can now approve Axis Bank card payments using Face ID or fingerprint, eliminating OTP delays and failed attempts
• The biometric authentication feature brings faster approvals backed by device binding and next-gen fraud protection

Flipkart, India’s homegrown e-commerce marketplace, in collaboration with Axis Bank, one of the largest private sector banks in India and PayU, India's leading diversified fintech platform, announced the launch of biometric authentication for card payments. Three trusted organizations have joined forces for this initiative, building on their shared history of a consumer first approach, and reinstating their collective commitment to the consumers of India.

The initiative allows users to authenticate transactions using their fingerprint or Face ID on supporting Android and iOS devices, eliminating the need for a one-time password (OTP). The service is enabled first for Axis Bank cardholders through issuer‑level biometric verification. With this launch, Flipkart has become one of the leading major Indian e-commerce platforms to offer biometric authentication for card payments.

The feature offers customers a more secure method of authentication backed by device fingerprinting and enhanced checks, reducing the risk of SIM‑swap or OTP‑based fraud. It addresses significant friction points in digital payments replacing SMS-based OTPs, with a faster and more secured mechanism already familiar to smartphone users. Under this collaboration, PayU manages the merchant-side infrastructure, including device security and authentication flows while Axis Bank leverages Wibmo (a PayU company) to power biometric verification on the issuer side.

Biometric authentication addresses India's alarming digital payment fraud landscape, where fraud values surged more than fivefold to exceed ₹1,400 crore in FY 2024, according to RBI-linked data. In response, the Reserve Bank of India issued the 'Authentication Mechanisms for Digital Payment Transactions Directions, 2025' circular, explicitly encouraging adoption of biometric and risk-based authentication over SMS OTPs. Strategically aligned with this regulatory vision, the Flipkart-PayU-Axis Bank partnership enhances security, improves transaction success rates, and creates a more resilient payment ecosystem while fulfilling RBI's mandate for stronger digital authentication mechanisms.


Commenting on the collaboration, Hemang Dattani, Chief Business Officer, PayU Payments, said, “As digital commerce continues to scale in India, simplifying payments without compromising on security is critical. At PayU, we are proud to partner with Flipkart to enable a biometric authentication experience for card payments, helping customers move past long-standing friction associated with OTP-based verification. By combining biometric authentication with enhanced security controls, this partnership marks a meaningful step towards building a faster, more secure and frictionless digital payments experience for Indian consumers.”

Speaking on the launch, Gaurav Arora, Vice President, Payments and SuperCoins at Flipkart, said, “At Flipkart, our approach to innovation is anchored around robust compliance and consumer trust. The integration of the biometric authentication feature reflects our commitment to building safety into consumer payments at a time when digital fraud risks are becoming increasingly sophisticated. By leveraging secure biometric credentials, we are delivering a payment experience that is intuitive and seamless, while meeting the highest standards of consumer protection. As digital commerce continues to scale, our focus remains on enabling faster transactions while reinforcing the regulatory rigour and ecosystem-wide trust that secure payments demand.”

Arnika Dixit, President & Head – Cards, Payments and Wealth Management, Axis Bank, said, “At Axis Bank, we are constantly working to reinforce trust and security across every digital touchpoint. Customers today expect digital payments to be not only safe but effortless, and biometric authentication delivers exactly that by enabling a secure, onetouch approval experience. We are delighted to introduce this enhanced capability for our cardholders through our collaboration with Flipkart and PayU. This rollout reflects the strength of our long standing partnership and our shared commitment to elevating industry standards in both security and customer experience. As digital commerce continues to evolve, we remain focused on bringing innovations that make payments simpler, stronger and future ready for our customers.”

This rollout marks a step forward in India’s transition away from OTPs, offering users a smoother way to pay while maintaining high standards of compliance and control. Through this collaboration, Flipkart, Axis Bank and PayU are establishing a strong model for a device‑bound biometric card authentication that can support the next generation of secure digital transactions in India.

The Flipkart Group is one of India’s leading digital commerce entities with a strong technology-first foundation and includes group companies Flipkart, Myntra, Flipkart Wholesale, Cleartrip, and super.money. Established in 2007, Flipkart has enabled millions of sellers, merchants, and small businesses to participate in India's digital commerce revolution. With a registered user base of more than 500 million, Flipkart’s marketplace offers over 150 million products across 80+ categories. Today, there are over 1.4 million sellers on the platform, including Shopsy sellers. With a focus on empowering and delighting every Indian by delivering value through technology and innovation, Flipkart has pioneered services such as Cash on Delivery, No Cost EMI, Easy Returns, and UPI payments. Beyond shopping, Flipkart continues to create jobs, empower entrepreneurs, and strengthen India’s digital economy.

Axis Bank is one of the largest private sector banks in India. Axis Bank offers the entire spectrum of services to customer segments covering Large and Mid-Corporates, SME, Agriculture, and Retail Businesses. It has 6,275 domestic branches (including extension counters) and 12,796 ATMs and cash recyclers spread across the country as on 31st March 2026. The Bank’s Axis Virtual Centre is present across eight centres with 1,591 Virtual Relationship Managers as on 31st March 2026. The Axis Group includes Axis Mutual Fund, Axis Securities Ltd., Axis Finance, Axis Trustee, Axis Capital, A.TReDS Ltd., Freecharge, Axis Pension Fund and Axis Bank Foundation.

PayU’s inFINity 3.0 Accelerator Shortlists 30 Startups, Unlocks Prosus Impact Grants for Financial Inclusion

PayU’s flagship fintech accelerator, inFINity 3.0, has leveled up to fuel the growth of fintech startups solving digital and financial inclusion challenges across India. The inFINity 3.0 cohort will be invited to co-create projects within the Prosus ecosystem and apply for impact grants of up to USD 25,000.

Announced in February 2026, inFINity 3.0 is the third edition of PayU’s fintech accelerator programme designed to help early-stage fintech startups transition from product build to market-ready, scalable businesses through a structured acceleration journey. The initiative drew strong interest from across the ecosystem, with over 600 applications. Following a highly competitive selection process, 30 promising fintech startups have been shortlisted to be part of the inFINity 3.0 cohort.

Startups focused on advancing digital and financial inclusion across underserved segments will have an opportunity to be eligible for impact grants from Prosus. Grants are available for innovations across four key areas:

• Women-led innovations - addressing gaps in credit, savings, healthcare, and safety
• Solutions for gig and informal workers - enabling income stability, credit access, and financial resilience. 
• Sustainability-led models - promoting long-term financial health and responsible growth
• Intersectional impact solutions – addressing multiple underserved segments such as women gig workers, rural entrepreneurs, and climate-vulnerable communities.

“India’s fintech ecosystem is at a pivotal moment, where innovation must translate into real, inclusive impact. Through our support to PayU’s inFINity 3.0, we aim to support founders who are building scalable impact solutions that expand access to digital and financial services for underserved communities within our ecosystem. Our focus is on enabling long-term, sustainable impact through capital, mentorship, and ecosystem access,” said Prajna Khanna, Chief Sustainability Officer, Prosus Group and Naspers Limited.

"Over the three editions, inFINity has grown into more than just a fintech accelerator - it's become our way of backing founders solving high-impact problems that truly matter. We're incredibly proud of this evolution", said Anirban Mukherjee, CEO, PayU. “By combining capital with ecosystem access, we aim to enable startups to build scalable solutions that can drive meaningful financial inclusion”

InFINity 3.0 will culminate in a Bootcamp and Demo Day in Bengaluru on April 22-23, 2026, bringing together founders, investors, and industry leaders.

The selected cohort in inFINity 3.0 will benefit from structured access to PayU’s payments infrastructure, merchant ecosystem, and banking partners, enabling faster pilots and real-world validation. The programme also includes mentorship from PayU leaders, fintech founders, and domain experts, along with exposure to investors and ecosystem enablers.

About PayU

PayU, India's leading diversified fintech platform with Prosus as an investor, operates businesses that are regulated by the Reserve Bank of India and offers advanced solutions to meet the digital financial services needs of customers (merchants, banks, and consumers).

PayU provides payment gateway solutions to online businesses through its cutting-edge and award-winning technology and has empowered 4.5 lakhs+ businesses, including India’s leading enterprises, e-commerce giants and SMBs. It enables businesses to collect digital payments across 100+ online payment methods such as Credit Cards, Debit Cards, Net Banking, EMIs, pay-later, QR, UPI, Wallets, and more. It’s a preferred partner in the affordability ecosystem, offering the maximum coverage of issuers and easy-to-implement integrations across card-based EMIs, pay-later options, and new-age cardless EMIs. PayU offers e-commerce brands with best-in-industry success rates while ensuring a seamless checkout experience.

PayU Launches AI-Powered Voice Assistant to Transform Merchant Onboarding

• Marking a step towards PayU’s roadmap to becoming an AI-native organization across the merchant lifecycle
• PayU’s AI-powered voice agent engages, verifies, and onboards merchants through natural conversational interactions in English and Hindi, with plans to scale across multiple languages

PayU, a leading diversified fintech platform, has today announced the launch of its AI-Powered Outbound Voice Call Assistant, marking a key step in its broader strategy of becoming an AI-native organization across the merchant lifecycle.

Merchant onboarding has traditionally been a cumbersome and time-consuming process, involving extensive paperwork, KYC verification, and multiple activation steps, often leading to delays, friction, and merchant drop-offs.

To address these challenges, PayU’s AI-powered Voice Call Assistant proactively engages merchant leads, especially those who have not initiated their onboarding journey. Through natural, conversational interactions in English and Hindi, the assistant guides merchants through the onboarding process while capturing essential business information such as website details, expected revenue, and business category. This enables faster verification, improved lead qualification, and significantly reduces drop-offs by connecting merchants with the right support at the right time, while enabling seamless handover to account managers for timely human intervention.

“We’re entering an era where Voice AI is becoming a core driver of how businesses operate and grow,” said Manas Mishra, Chief Product Officer, PayU and Wibmo. “At PayU, we are steadily building an AI-native platform where merchants remain at the center of every innovation. Our AI-Powered Outbound Voice Call Assistant is one example of how we are removing friction across the merchant lifecycle, from onboarding to activation and beyond, while enabling our teams to focus on deeper, high-impact engagement.”

PayU further intends to expand Voice AI deployment to additional merchant touchpoints, including KYC drop-off recovery, activation workflows, new product requests, and cross-sell opportunities and scale it across multiple languages to serve a broader merchant base.

About PayU

PayU, India's leading diversified fintech platform with Prosus as an investor, operates businesses that are regulated by the Reserve Bank of India and offers advanced solutions to meet the digital financial services needs of customers (merchants, banks, and consumers).

PayU provides payment gateway solutions to online businesses through its cutting-edge and award-winning technology and has empowered 4.5 lakhs+ businesses, including India’s leading enterprises, e-commerce giants and SMBs. It enables businesses to collect digital payments across 100+ online payment methods such as Credit Cards, Debit Cards, Net Banking, EMIs, pay-later, QR, UPI, Wallets, and more. It’s a preferred partner in the affordability ecosystem, offering the maximum coverage of issuers and easy-to-implement integrations across card-based EMIs, pay-later options and new-age cardless EMIs. PayU offers e-commerce brands best-in-industry success rates while ensuring a seamless checkout experience.

8B–PayU Partnership Brings UPI to Central Asia, Unlocking Seamless Payments for Indian Tourists and Merchants

8B, a Central Asian fintech infrastructure company, and PayU, India’s leading diversified fintech platform, have signed a strategic partnership to bring UPI, one of the world’s fastest-growing digital payment systems, and other Indian payment offerings to Central Asia. The integration of PayU’s APIs into 8B’s merchant network across Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and the broader region offers clear benefits, enabling users in India to make payments to merchants in Central Asia via UPI, net banking, and local cards. This collaboration marks a significant milestone in strengthening the digital payment infrastructures between the two economies, laying the first structural bridge for growing trade and tourism opportunities.

What the Partnership enables for Tourists:

India’s outbound tourism market reached $18.82 billion in travel expenditure in 2024 and is forecast to grow to $55.39 billion by 2034. Indian nationals rank among the world’s highest-spending tourists. At the same time, Central Asia sustained strong tourism growth in 2025 - with India consistently appearing among the top five source markets for Kazakhstan. Almaty’s tourism momentum continued in 2025, with the city welcoming 1.14 million visitors in the first half of the year, including 323,500 foreign arrivals, as India emerged as its top source market.

Indian arrivals to Uzbekistan rose 22.7% in the first five months of 2025 compared to the same period the year before. Kazakhstan received an estimated 250,000 Indian visitors in 2025, up from 146,000 in 2024, as air connectivity expanded and visa-free access for Indian travellers continued to support demand.Uzbekistan welcomed 66,100 Indian tourists in 2025 alone. The trajectory is clear. What has been missing is a payment layer that reflects it.

Through the 8B–PayU API integration, merchants across Central Asia connected to 8B’s platform can accept UPI payments directly from Indian tourists - using the same apps and websites Indian consumers use for everything, from ordering street food to flight bookings at home. No new hardware. No parallel onboarding. The transaction flows through existing merchant infrastructure with UPI added as a payment rail. Beyond the UPI infrastructure, merchants in Central Asia will also be able to accept payments through Net Banking and any Indian credit or debit cards on acquiring networks including RuPay from Indian tourists. In Kazakhstan, this is made possible through Zesta LLP, a locally licensed payment organisation (licence No. 02-23-179), ensuring full regulatory compliance for every transaction processed in the country.

From Tourism to Trade

This partnership goes beyond facilitating payments for foreign tourists. India is not only a source of tourists to Central Asia - it is an economy whose merchants and businesses are increasingly active in the region. India–Kazakhstan bilateral trade reached $923.3 million in 2025. The economic relationship between India and Central Asia is not a tourism story. It is a structural trade and investment story, with tourism as its most visible leading indicator.

The trade aspect here is primarily import-led, with Indian consumers purchasing goods and services from Central Asian merchants and funds being remitted outside India to the merchants’ bank accounts abroad. From a merchant’s perspective, this is not just about processing payments - it is about turning demand into revenue. Central Asian businesses selling air tickets, digital services and digital goods will no longer face issues with Indian customers since now they are able to purchase without changing payment preferences. When payment acceptance is well-aligned with how Indian consumers prefer to pay, merchants are better positioned to improve conversion and reduce friction at checkout.

“The India–Central Asia corridor is moving faster than the rails, roads, and payment systems built to serve it. The Indian visitor landing in Almaty today comes with digital habits shaped by UPI. Asking them to navigate a different payment experience abroad creates unnecessary friction. This is about making cross-border commerce feel as effortless as commerce at home - opens the door to a broader commercial relationship in which tourism is only the starting point. - Bogdan Zadorozhnyi, Co-Founder & Chief Innovation Officer, 8B. 

“Payments should not be a barrier for international travel or trade. Through our strategic partnership with 8B, we are eliminating any payment-related friction - making it effortless for Indian travellers to pay with UPI and other local methods across Central Asia while opening new growth corridors for merchants in the region. Our collaboration represents a significant step forward in PayU’s international growth strategy, through which we're not just enabling transactions, we're laying the foundation of the future of digital payments infrastructure between the two economies, one that connects India's digital-savvy consumers with Central Asia's rapidly growing travel and commerce sectors.” said Nikhil Mehta, Senior Vice President –Partnerships & Business Head – Growth Initiatives (Cross Border Payments & Affordability), PayU.

Central Asia’s Moment

Kazakhstan welcomed 15.7 million foreign visitors in the first nine months of 2025, with tourism revenue from accommodation services rising to $536.8 million, up $88.1 million year-on-year. Uzbekistan was ranked among the seven fastest-growing tourism destinations in the world by UN Tourism for 2025. Kyrgyzstan welcomed approximately 10 million visitors in 2025, compared with 8.86 million in 2024. The region is not emerging - it has emerged. What it now requires is the payment infrastructure layer that matches the scale of the opportunity.

The 8B–PayU partnership connects two existing national-scale systems - UPI with 8B’s Central Asian merchant network, enabling effortless India-Central Asia payments today.

About 8B

8B, a provider of cross-border QR payments for fintech, e-commerce and travel platforms. Coverage regions: Central Asia, Southeast Asia, and South Asia. The company focuses on local payment rails operated by central banks and leading private fintech companies.

About PayU

PayU, India's leading diversified fintech platform with Prosus as an investor, operates businesses that are regulated by the Reserve Bank of India and offers advanced solutions to meet the digital financial services needs of customers (merchants, banks, and consumers).

PayU provides payment gateway solutions to online businesses through its cutting-edge and award-winning technology and has empowered 4.5 lakhs+ businesses, including India’s leading enterprises, e-commerce giants and SMBs. It enables businesses to collect digital payments across 100+ online payment methods such as Credit Cards, Debit Cards, Net Banking, EMIs, pay-later, QR, UPI, Wallets, and more. It’s a preferred partner in the affordability ecosystem, offering the maximum coverage of issuers and easy-to-implement integrations across card-based EMIs, pay-later options and new-age cardless EMIs. PayU offers e-commerce brands best-in-industry success rates while ensuring a seamless checkout experience.

Israel-based Rapyd Acquiring PayU's Global Payments Organisation (GPO) for $610 Mn, To Enable PayU Focus on India Fintech Biz

Rapyd, Israel's fintech-as-a-service startup, is acquiring PayU’s Global Payments Organisation (GPO) for a total cash consideration of $610 million. The transaction will enable PayU to focus on the large payments and fintech opportunity in India, announced the company.

The acquisition of PayU Global Payment Organisation (GPO) does not include PayU’s India, Turkey and Southeast Asia operations.

PayU is a payments and fintech business of Prosus, a Netherlands-based consumer internet group and a technology investor that operates and invests in markets with long-term growth potential.

PayU’s GPO business provides advanced ecommerce payment solutions for global merchants in over 30 countries across Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe and Africa. The business contributes around 30% of PayU's overall revenues. In FY23, total payment volumes for GPO grew 12% year-on-year to US$34bn. This is around 3x growth in 5 years.

PayU will now focus on the "rapidly growing Indian payments and credit business", according to a statement from Prosus, under its subsidiary PayU India, through which it is serving more than 450,000 merchants and more than 2m credit customers.

For Rapyd, the acquisition of PayU GPO expands its global reach, strengthening its position in key vertical markets including eCommerce, logistics and transportation.

PayU CEO Laurent le Moal, said,"PayU's payments business is one of the largest, fastest growing, and most profitable non-banking businesses in India, with 42% year on year growth in the last year alone." Overall, India's digital financial services opportunity remains large and underserved, providing healthy growth for PayU India".

According to the company's consolidated financial statement for 2023, PayU's India business alone generated $399 million in revenue in FY23, growing 31% year on year.

To recall, in October last year, Prosus had terminated a $4.7 billion deal to buy Indian payments firm BillDesk despite receiving approval from the Competition Commission of India (CCI).

Prosus is majority-owned by South African multinational Naspers, and through its subsidiary Prosus, Naspers has claimed to have invested close to $6 billion in Indian technology companies since 2005.

In July 2021, Prosus, along with SoftBank, led the $1.25 billion financing round of Swiggy and holds about ~ 38% stake in the Indian food delivery giant.

Wibmo, a PayU company, Secured India's 1st PCI Secure SLC Certification by SISA, A Cybersecurity Company

This certification establishes the brand as the first Indian company to obtain this certification, which is critical for companies developing payment software.

Wibmo, a PayU company has been certified as a ‘PCI Secure SLC qualified Company.’ The brand is now among the top 10 companies in the world to get this certification.

With the increased number of digital transactions, there has also been an increase in cybercrime, which necessitates additional safeguards to ensure the safety of software and platforms used by customers, particularly in the payments industry.

This certification will strengthen customers' trust in Wibmo and give them extra assurance that they are in safe hands when using the company's software solutions.

The PCI Secure SLC Standard is intended for companies, who build software for the payments industry. Being Secure SLC certified shows that the company has an established secure software development lifecycle.

The PCI Secure Software Lifecycle (SLC) Standard is a component of the PCI Software Security Framework that assists software vendors in designing and integrating security at each stage of the software lifecycle. Software vendors can appoint a Secure SLC Assessor to assess and validate their SLC for compliance with the Secure SLC Standard. The Secure SLC Assessor documents the assessment and validation in a Report on Compliance (ROC). The PCI SSC's Secure SLC-Qualified Software Vendors list includes software vendors who have gone through this validation process.

Wibmo attained the PCI S-SLC certification through an independent assessment by SISA, a Qualified Security Assessor (QSA) and one of the top 4 global PCI Forensic Investigators (PFIs).

The certification journey consisted of three phases, viz., Gap Assessment, Validation and Listing. In the first phase, SISA carried out the application source code review, forensic analysis and security testing, which culminated in identifying vulnerabilities and providing recommendations for mitigating them. In the second phase, SISA performed an offsite evaluation of action points, review of all PCI S-SLC requirements and re-testing of the application to verify that all action points identified during the initial application security testing have been mitigated. Thereafter, SISA prepared the final Report on Compliance (RoC) and Attestation of Compliance (AoC) and issued the Certificate of Compliance (CoC) after the application was listed, post the review of documents by the PCI Assessor Quality Management (AQM) team.

According to Pravin Kumar, CISO of Wibmo, a PayU company, Wibmo's information security strategy focuses on enabling business and creating a competitive advantage over the long term for our company. The entire team has supported this mission over the last year, and we now stand out from our competitors. We have received many certifications in the past year, including ISO 27001, ISO 27701, SOC2, GDPR readiness, and many more.We are in the payment software business, so it was imperative that we provide assurance from a reputable agency to our existing and prospective clients. We decided to pursue PCI - SLC certification for all our platforms with the assistance of our partner SISA. With their help, we were able to achieve this prestigious certification. It is heartening to hear that we are the first in India and one of very few in the world to get this certification. “

“With the payment technology landscape rapidly evolving, the need for implementing the right security controls, especially for payment software has risen tremendously. PCI S-SLC is designed to support a wider range of technologies, payment software types, and development methodologies compared to PA-DSS. These standard addresses key security principles such as governance, threat identification, vulnerability detection and mitigation, security testing, change management, secure software updates, and stakeholder communications. Being S-SLC certified demonstrates that you have a mature secure software development lifecycle in place. SISAs partnership with Wibmo underlies our effort to enable and empower Wibmo grow and deliver safe solutions to its customers. We congratulate Wibmo for attaining the PCI S-SLC compliance certificate and appreciate their efforts and commitment towards building a highly secure payment environment for their customers,” said Dharshan Shanthamurthy, CEO and Founder, SISA.

About Wibmo

Wibmo Inc., a Cupertino, California company is a subsidiary of PayU. It is a global full-stack PayTech company an industry leader in payment security and digital payments in emerging markets, partnering with 130+ banks across 28 countries. The company is the largest authentication service provider in India, one of the world's leading digital payment markets. It also offers solutions ranging from mobile payments, fraud and risk management, prepaid solutions, and a host of merchant and acquiring services.

Learn more about Wibmo: https://www.wibmo.co/ or reach out to us at: sales@wibmo.com.

About SISA

SISA is a global cybersecurity company, with offices in 14 countries, including Bangalore, India and Irving, Texas. SISA helps organisations grow with true cyber-security with robust preventive, detective, and corrective security services, and solutions.

By taking the problem first approach and leveraging its experience as a Top 4 Global Payment Forensic Investigator (recognised by PCI Security Standards Council), SISA helps its 2,000 customers in 40+ countries focus on their business growth by taking care of their cybersecurity challenges.

For more information, visit www.sisainfosec.com or write to Aparna Gajanan at aparna.gajanan@sisainfosec.com

PayU Rolls out UPI AutoPay feature For Subscription Payments

PayU merchants can offer customers subscription payments across OTT, education, online delivery, utility bill payments and other sectors

PayU, India's leading online payment solutions provider, today announced the integration of the UPI AutoPay feature for merchants. A front-runner in offering innovative solutions, the step re-affirms PayU India's commitment to equip merchant partners with the latest technologies. With this integration, PayU merchants can offer UPI AutoPay to all customers and automate collection of recurring payments of up to Rs. 2000 per transaction.

UPI is one of the most popular payment modes on the PayU platform and UPI AutoPay is poised to be a game-changer for frequent, small ticket and daily transactions. This feature will greatly increase consumer convenience by streamlining recurring payments across segments such as mobile bills, electricity bills, EMI payments, education, entertainment/OTT subscriptions to name a few. Setting a new standard of innovation, UPI AutoPay will enable merchants to automate billing, improve cash flows and offer better pricing.

Commenting on the integration of UPI AutoPay, Manas Mishra, Chief Product Officer, PayU India, said, "The enhanced subscriptions payment model, powered by UPI AutoPay, is set to bring in a new wave of business efficiency and consumer convenience. It furthers PayU's vision to create a frictionless payment experience. Merchants can now optimize their billing plans, improve revenues, and cash flow and experience the versatility of a subscription suite. Given the benefits of UPI AutoPay such as fixed payment schedules, easy, and customizable integration, we expect a majority of our merchants to adopt this feature."

Krupal Parchure, Head UPI Product and Strategy at NPCI, said "With UPI AutoPay, customers can now subscribe to merchant services after one-time authentication through their UPI app. Merchants can debit customers for payments based on various frequencies and can offer easy cancellation services with zero fees and no refund-related hassles. A pre-notification will inform customers about charges to be levied. At NPCI it's our constant endeavor to innovate and bring in customized digital solutions for the customers and provide them an exceptional digital payments experience."

With UPI AutoPay, customers can create, approve, modify, pause as well as revoke auto debit mandate on the 'mandate' section of their UPI-enabled application. The mandates can be set for one-time, daily, weekly, fortnightly, monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, half yearly and yearly. UPI users can create e-mandate through UPI ID, QR scan or Intent.

About PayU India

PayU, India's leading online payment solutions provider, is regulated under the Reserve Bank of India and has advanced solutions to meet the digital payment needs of the Indian market.

PayU provides payment gateway solutions to online businesses through its cutting-edge and award-winning technology.  In India, PayU serves more than 350,000 merchants with 70+ local payment methods and is the preferred payments partner for nearly 60% of the e-commerce merchants, including all leading e-commerce companies and a majority of airline businesses.

PayU also developed LazyPay in 2017, an alternate lending platform to offer credit solutions such as Small Ticket Credit (Buy Now Pay Later), App-based loans (Instant personal loans) and Point of Sale Credit (Merchant EMI). LazyPay Buy Now Pay Later is currently live on 100+ merchants such as Byju's, Swiggy, Flipkart, Makemytrip, Dunzo, Vodafone, Zomato, Bookmyshow, Oyo, Tata Sky and many more.

PayU Launches a Number of Innovative Initiatives to Support Businesses Amidst COVID-19 Pandemic

PayU, India's leading payment gateway, has launched several innovative initiatives to help merchants, small and medium businesses and entrepreneurs manage the disruption caused by the COVID-19 crisis. With the entire nation coming together to fight the battle against a deadly virus, PayU's measures are aimed at enabling businesses to be more productive and collaborative in these challenging times.

Some of the key initiatives are mentioned below:

• At a time when SMBs are in critical need to be digitally ready, PayU is offering to build a free website for any merchant's business with a built-in payment gateway & get 100% TDR waiver on the first INR 50,000 worth of business done via PayU. Whether a merchant is selling over the counter, delivering products or sending invoices to the customer, PayU will help them run businesses as smoothly as possible.


• Through Startups Helping Startups platform launched by PayU, emerging businesses can take help from each other in these challenging times. With as many as 32 partners such as Shopify, ZOHO, Shopmatic, Verloop, Atlassian etc., start-ups can avail offers ranging from setting up e-commerce stores at INR 50 per month to free web, app and Whatsapp Chatbots for customer support automation.


• To facilitate easy lending for businesses and help businesses get easy credit, PayU has partnered with Indifi to bring easy loans for our merchants who need credit to run their business smoothly. Merchants can avail loan amounts up to INR 50 lakhs with offers such as revolving line of credit with flexibility of drawdown as and when needed and pro-rata interest calculated on daily outstanding amount. Term loans with one-time lumpsum disbursement with a flexible tenure of 3 months to 24 months will also be available.

For details of the initiatives by PayU, please refer to https://www.payu.in/covid-19-response.

About PayU India

PayU, India's leading online payment solutions provider, is regulated under the Reserve Bank of India and has advanced solutions to meet the digital payment needs of the Indian market.

PayU provides payment gateway solutions to online businesses through its cutting-edge and award-winning technology. In India, PayU serves more than 350,000 merchants with 70+ local payment methods and is the preferred payments partner for nearly 60% of the e-commerce merchants, including all leading e-commerce companies and a majority of airline businesses.

PayU also developed LazyPay in 2017, an alternate lending platform to offer credit solutions such as Small Ticket Credit (Buy Now Pay Later), App-based loans (Instant personal loans) and Point of Sale Credit (Merchant EMI). LazyPay Buy Now Pay Later is currently live on 100+ merchants such as Byju's, Swiggy, Flipkart, Makemytrip, Dunzo, Vodafone, Zomato, Bookmyshow, Oyo, Tata Sky and many more.

PayU to Acquire Controlling Stake in Digital Lending Startup PaySense

PayU on Friday said it will acquire a controlling stake in PaySense and all its assets at a valuation of USD 185 million (about Rs 1,300 crore).

"PayU's consumer lending business LazyPay and PaySense will merge their business operations to build a full-stack digital lending platform in India. This planned merger is aligned with PayU's long term vision of orchestrating a fintech ecosystem in India by partnering with the right companies and offering multiple financial services," a statement said.

PayU will also inject up to USD 200 million (about Rs 1,400 crore) in the new enterprise in the form of equity capital, it said.

It added that USD 65 million of the total amount will be immediately invested, while the balance corpus will be infused in the next 24 months to grow the loan book.

Prashanth Ranganathan (currently PaySense CEO) will lead PayU's credit business in India as the CEO of the new enterprise. He will continue to retain a stake in the merged enterprise, while all the other investors and shareholders will exit. PaySense's management team will become part of PayU's credit team.

PayU's understanding of consumer backgrounds and insights into purchase behaviour and affluence levels from its payment gateway business, coupled with LazyPay's experience in driving customer acquisition and engagement and PaySense's analytics, tech and risk management capabilities will enable the combined entity to serve more of the new-to-credit Indian population, the statement said.

PayU's unified digital credit platform will enable third parties such as banks, NBFCs and alternate lenders to co-lend and grow assets.

"This merger is the next step in our journey as we accelerate our vision for credit in India. We're delighted to welcome Prashanth and his experienced team as we integrate this fast-growing business and build a full-stack digital lending platform..." PayU Global Head of Credit Siddhartha Jajodia said.

In a separate statement, Nexus Venture Partners said it was the sole initial institutional investor in Paysense.

Nexus had first partnered Prashanth Ranganathan and Sayali Karanjkar at concept stage of the company in 2015, and further participated in all subsequent rounds of the company, it added. PTI SR

PayU, IRCTC Joins Hand To Lends Online Payment Services To Users

India’s leading internet payment service provider, PayU has announced its collaborations with the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) to provide users a safe and secure option to pay for rail tickets booked via the IRCTC website.

According to ETRetail, PayU will now be available as a payment option under the Multiple Payment Services or MPS option on the IRCTC website at the payment stage of booking an e- ticket. Clicking on this option will enable users to make a safe and secure transaction via various payment options like internet banking, debit/credit card, and e-wallet.

Commenting on the development, Rahul Kothari, Enterprise Business Head, PayU India said, “Our payment gateway operates around 80% of the e-commerce business in India today, and this collaboration with IRCTC is aligned with our vision to simplify the payment experience for the growing digital savvy consumers as well as the merchants. Undoubtedly, this is a very large and prestigious mandate for us. IRCTC's biggest strength, its traffic, combined with the success rate of our payment gateway, which is the best in the industry today, is a great match and has a huge potential to enhance the digital transactions landscape and contribute towards making India a cashless/less cash economy.”

Earlier in May 2017, PayU has partnered with Mswipe Technologies Private Limited, India’s largest independent POS merchant acquirer and network provider for digital payments. PayU India claims to processes over 6500 crores worth of digital transactions every month and enjoys a success rate that is 10% higher than the industry average.

Talking about IRCTC, it claims to records 6 lakh transactions per day on an average with the total number of bookings hitting a whopping 13 lakh figure on peak days. Earlier this year, IRCTC has partnered with ePayLater, India’s first of its kind “Buy Now Pay Later” checkout service to offer a quick and completely frictionless payment experience for ticket bookings.

Mswipe and PayU Partner for Digital Payments in India

Mswipe Technologies Private Limited, India's largest independent POS merchant acquirer and network provider, and PayU, India’s leading internet payment service provider have partnered together for digital payments. Under the partnership, Mswipe will merge PayU’s existing offline POS division team into its existing operations and workforce expanding its network to 2,20,000 terminals, across 550+ cities with a combined team strength of 2,000+ employees.

This mutually profitable, bilateral alliance will also allow the merchant base of Mswipe to benefit from the various internet payment services offered by PayU India. Furthermore, PayU's wide assortment of merchants across sectors will have an access to Mswipe for their entire POS services related requirement. PayU will continue to expand its direct presence in the online fintech and payments space.

Manish Patel, Founder and CEO, Mswipe said, “POS terminals are the preferred medium of payments by customers to transact digitally at merchant locations. The partnership with PayU is mutually beneficial to both companies as it helps each consolidate its leadership positions in their areas of focus. We welcome the PayU team and merchant network and the expanded footprint across small and mid-sized merchants will further help us bring them into the digital fold by offering affordable and convenient POS services.”

B. Amrish Rau, CEO, PayU India said, “We are laser focused on the online space and continue to increase our market share through new fintech products and innovation. We are glad to witness the fruition of our partnership with Mswipe, crystallized by this transaction. This partnership allows us to focus on our core of enabling digital payments across more brands and merchants across the country. As the leader in internet payment services, we remain committed to realizing the Government’s Digital India vision by bringing access to digital payments to all. We will continue to focus on providing most comprehensive payment options to all our merchants.”

Mswipe’s growth and customer base:

As much as 80% of Mswipe’s customer base comprises of SME merchants, typically supported by 2-3 employees. The turnover of these outlets are in the range of Rs 1 to 5 lakhs a month, and a majority of these merchants have been able to accept credit and debit card payments for the first time through Mswipe.

In the last one year, transaction value on the Mswipe network has grown 4 times while number of installations has grown 3 times. The thriving customer base of Mswipe also reveals a growing need to accept digital payments across retail categories, including grocery stores, eateries, pharmacies, and apparel vendors, mobile and electronic shops.

“The fastest way to increase cashless transactions is by rapidly growing the number of POS terminals across the country. While traditional merchant acquirers have focused on large businesses, the needs of small and mid-sized merchants have largely been ignored. With affordable mPOS devices and acceptance infrastructure, we are trying to enable digital payments acceptance for the ubiquitous merchant”, added Manish.

PayU Buys Citrus Pay For $130 Million In An India’s Biggest FinTech Acquisition Ever

Gurgaon-based digital payments provider PayU India, which is owned by South Africa's Naspers Group, said on Wednesday it will buy Mumbai-based payment startup Citrus Pay (Rs 865 crore) for $130 million, the fifth-largest deal ever in the Indian start-up business.

The acquisition is expected to close by the end of the year and is also expected to yield handsome cash returns to venture capital investors who backed the 5-year-old company, a rare instance in the Indian startup landscape. Sequoia Capital, the earliest backer of Citrus Pay, which had invested about $10 million and owned a 32% stake in the venture, is expected to earn a four-fold return on its investment, while Ascent Capital, which bought a 8% stake last year, has earned about $12 million, according to sources.

After the acquisition, PayU India will have more than 30 million customers. The company forecast that it will process an estimated 150 million transactions worth $4.2 billion in 2016.

"Today’s announcement is a significant milestone for both businesses, as well as the FinTech industry in India,” PayU’s global operations CEO Laurent le Moal said in a statement. "It is exciting for everyone across the PayU and Citrus teams as we bring together new capabilities that will help us to better serve our collective clients."

The deal places CitrusPay CEO Amrish Rau at the head of PayU’s India operation, which apparently means that the two companies will be completely merged and CitrusPay’s brand will cease to exist. The deal could also see PayU co-founder Nitin Gupta leave the company to launch a new startup probably.

CitrusPay and PayU have very similar business models and both were established in 2011. PayU maintains operations around the world. Its India branch offers net banking, credit and debit options and allows users to attach their digital wallets to their regular checking accounts for the purpose of making purchases online. The company received a “semi-closed wallet license” from the Reserve Bank of India in August. The Boston Consulting Group said in July they expected the Indian digital payments market to reach $500 billion by 2020.