Merchant payment app BharatPe on Wednesday announced its foray into the consumer payments segment with the rebranding of its buy now, pay later (BNPL) app postpe to BharatPe. The unified brand will compete directly with digital payment companies Paytm, PhonePe, and Google Pay in the country.
“With this launch, BharatPe will be able to cater to millions of customers who use digital payments,” the company said in a statement.
The company has tied up with the Unity Small Finance Bank to enable UPI TPAP (third party application provider). The new offering is currently available for Android users.
Consumers would be able to use the BharatPe app for payments, bank transfer, balance check, collect authorization, raise collection request, and utility bill payments including gas, DTH, electricity bills, insurance payments, etc, BharatPe said.
The app also provides the UPI Lite feature for consumers to preload their online wallet and make transactions of up to Rs 500 across P2P and P2M transactions without the need for a UPI PIN.
Explaining the move, Nalin Negi, CEO, BharatPe said the next stage of growth for UPI will come from Bharat and hence, “we have designed this app, keeping in mind the needs of the customers of Bharat.”
In the coming months, BharatPe will launch a portfolio of new features on its app, said Negi. “Observing significant interest in the consumer payments product space, we wanted to introduce a UPI payment offering for consumers. This also enables to complete the cycle and offer both consumer and merchant payments,” said Kohinoor Biswas, Business Head- Consumer, BharatPe.
Biswas said rebranding postpe as BharatPe aligns with the company’s goal of “providing a unified brand and platform for both consumers and merchants.”
Primarily as a merchant payment app, BharatPe said it has a network of more than 1.3 crore merchants processing over 370 million UPI transactions per month. Its lending arm BharatPe Money has facilitated loans of more than Rs 15,000 crore in partnership with NBFCs.