Axis Bank and Freecharge, a company owned by e-commerce firm Snapdeal, have tied up to enable customers to make payments using the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) system. UPI allows users to pay merchants directly from their bank account without sharing their card details. Rajiv Anand, ED, Retail Business of the bank, said the partnership will allow Freecharge users to pay for transactions from their bank accounts and they do not have to be customers of Axis Bank. Freecharge’s CEO Govind Rajan said the company’s customers can use Freecharge app on Axis Bank’s software development kit to offer both registration and payments. UPI facilitates ‘virtual address’ as a payment identifier for sending and collecting money. It uses MPIN for the two-factor authentication instead of the one-time password (OTP).
