HDFC Bank is to use mobile based payments app Chillr for small transactions. Apart from the shopkeepers, many of whom already accepts card payments, the bank is in talks with neighbourhood dhobis and autorikshaw drivers. The bank has set a target of one lakh merchants accepting payments in a couple of months. Earlier, in March 2015, HDFC Bank has tied up MobME, a third party developer, to provide Chillr for its customers. Since then, the app has seen more than one lakh downloads. It has also recorded retail transaction worth Rs 9 crore. The Chillr for business app allows the merchant to generate a bill on his app and ‘push’ it to the customer either directly over the air or by getting the customer to scan a QR code on the merchant’s app. The customer then merely enters the m-PIN to make the payment. Although the application has been launched as peer-to-peer payment service, the simplicity and instant transfer has enabled its use in commercial transactions also. Bank’s head of digital banking, Nitin Chugh, said they had seen a variety of marker segments from doctors to dhobis to accept payments on the app. He said that now the bank is reasonably sure that there is a lot of interest in this category and the only thing market require is high degree of convenience.
