HDFC Bank has launched SmartHub Merchant Solutions 3.0, India’s first comprehensive banking and payment solution for merchants. It allows merchants and self-employed professionals to instantly open a current account and start accepting payments in-store, online, and on-the-go. The solution will enable the bank to reach out to more than 20 million small and medium merchants and professionals like doctors, pharmacies, salons, and laundry services across metro, semi-urban and rural India in the next 3 years. SmartHub 3.0 will be available in multiple forms – app-based, web-based, and also a range of PoS devices. It is expected to bring inefficiencies in the business and has features like digitizing Khata, enabling collection reminders, inventory management, billing software, and lending to merchants’ basis their banking history. Parag Rao, Country Head – Payments, Consumer Finance, Digital Banking and Marketing at the bank, said small and medium businesses are the backbone of the country’ economy, and to further deepen the penetration of digital forms of payment across India, it is important that the merchant network is empowered with the best range of solutions. Greater adoption of digital platforms by small and medium businesses is a critical step in achieving the objective of Digital India, he added.