ICICI Bank extends instant 'Cardless EMI' for online shopping; enhances affordability of customers

Millions of pre-approved customers can instantly and digitally convert their high value purchases into easy EMIs
They can avail the facility across 2,500 e-commerce brands
First bank in the country to offer this facility

Mumbai: ICICI Bank today announced that it has introduced the instant ‘Cardless EMI’ facility to online purchases made on e-commerce platforms. The facility enhances affordability to millions of the Bank’s pre-approved customers, as it allows them to instantly buy products or services online through Equated Monthly Instalments (EMIs) in just a few clicks by using their mobile phone and PAN. Customers can convert the transactions up to Rs. 5 lakh into easy monthly instalments by simply entering their registered mobile number, PAN and OTP (received on mobile number) at the check-out section of the e-commerce website or app. The facility can be availed across a host of categories such as electronics, home appliances, laptops, mobile phones, travel, fashion apparels, sports-wear, education and home decor.

ICICI Bank is the first in the industry to introduce convenient and instant cardless EMI facility for online shopping, seven months after it launched the same service at retail stores. The Bank has tied up with leading digital lending platforms namely FlexMoney and ShopSe to offer this facility across 2,500 brands including Bata, Bajaj Electricals, Career Launcher, D Décor, Decathlon, Duroflex, Flipkart, HealthifyMe, Henry Harvin Education, Kurl-on, Lenovo, Lido Learning, Myntra, Makemytrip, Morphy Richards, Nokia, ONLY, Panasonic, Pristyn Care, Raymonds, Simplilearn, Tata Cliq, Think & Learn, Toppr, Vedantu, Vero Moda, Vijay Sales and Urban Ladder. The Bank will add more brands to this facility in future.

Speaking on the new facility, Mr. Sudipta Roy, Head- Unsecured Assets, ICICI Bank said, “We, at ICICI Bank, believe in providing innovative, convenient and hassle-free products to our customers. With this thought, we had introduced instant ‘Cardless EMI’ facility for retail stores in the last festive season to help our customers to purchase products of their choice in a completely contactless, digital and secure manner. Inspired by the encouraging response from it, we have now extended the facility for online shopping. With this, our customers can shop from over 2,500 e-commerce merchants and brands just by using mobile phone and PAN. The new offering improves affordability to millions of our customers as they can purchase high value products on EMIs and in a secure, convenient, instant and digital manner.”

Mr. Yezdi Lashkari, Founder & CEO of FlexMoney Technologies said, “We are delighted to partner with ICICI Bank and enable their customers to shop with ‘Cardless EMI’ at their favourite e-commerce merchants and brands. We share ICICI Bank’s vision that the future of purchase finance will be a frictionless, integrated, and cardless digital credit checkout experience for the consumer. FlexMoney’s InstaCred platform provides a seamless and secure merchant integrated checkout experience to customers of ICICI Bank enabling them to shop
across our multi-category merchant network.”

Mr. Pallav Jain, Co-founder & CEO, ShopSe added, “At ShopSe, we are passionate about
providing best-in-class EMI solution to our merchant partners and customers. That’s why we
are proud to get an opportunity to partner with ICICI Bank on their innovative and first-of-itskind Cardless EMI product. It’s been a delight working with ICICI Bank team, which is equally
passionate about the experience at point of purchase.”

Benefits offered by ‘Cardless EMI’ for online shopping:
Digital & instant process: Customers can avail the EMI facility in a completely digital, instant and secure manner
Wide transaction limit: Customers can get pre-approved limit for purchases from Rs. 7,000 to Rs. 5 lakh
Flexible tenures: Customers can select tenures of their choice from 3, 6, 9 and 12 months
Exclusive convenience: No other bank in India offers this convenience
Wide range of categories: The facility is available across 2,500 e-commerce brands of electronics, home appliances, laptops, mobile phones, travel, fashion, sports-wear and home décor

Here are simple steps to opt for the ‘ICICI Bank Cardless EMI’ facility:

 Log on to the website/ app of any of 2,500 e-commerce brands
 Choose the products or services > Choose ‘Cardless EMI’ as the payment option
 Enter registered mobile number > enter PAN > enter the OTP
 Transaction gets approved at this stage instantly

ICICI Bank customers can check their eligibility for ‘Cardless EMI’ for online shopping by
sending SMS ‘CARDLESS’ to ‘5676766’ or check the offers section on iMobile app.

To know more about the ‘ICICI Bank Cardless EMI’ facility, visit
https://www.icicibank.com/Personal-Banking/loans/cardless-emi/how-it-worksonline.page?#toptitle
For news and updates, visit www.icicibank.com and follow us on Twitter
at www.twitter.com/ICICIBank

ICICI Bank links UPI ID facility to its ‘Pockets’ digital wallet

 First bank to introduce the unique facility
 Customers now don’t need a bank account to use UPI ID on “Pockets” app
 All customers including those who are not banking with ICICI Bank can use the facility

Mumbai: ICICI Bank today announced the launch of a unique facility of linking a UPI (Unified Payments Interface) ID to its digital wallet ’Pockets’, marking a departure from the current practice that demands such IDs be linked with a savings bank account. New users, including those who are not customers of ICICI Bank, can now instantly get a UPI ID, which is automatically linked to ‘Pockets’. Further, customers who already have a UPI ID, will get a new ID when they log on to the ‘Pockets’ app. This initiative enables users to undertake small value everyday transactions directly from their ‘Pockets’ wallet using UPI in a safe and secure
manner. It helps them to streamline the number of transactions being undertaken daily from their savings account and thus de-clutter their savings account statement of multiple entries. Further, it expands the convenient usage of UPI to young adults like college students, who may not have a savings account.

ICICI Bank is the first in the industry to enable customers to make UPI transactions from their wallet balance instead of their savings account.

The Bank has collaborated with NPCI to link its ‘Pockets’ digital wallet to the UPI network, paving way for this novel initiative of linking of a customer’s UPI ID with his/ her digital wallet. With this, customers using ‘Pockets’ can pay/ receive money directly from/to ‘Pockets’ wallet balance without using their savings bank account. Users of ‘Pockets’ digital wallet can use the UPI ID to make person to person (P2P) payments such as sending money to any individual’s bank account or paying to a contact. They can also undertake person to merchant (P2M) payments like paying online at merchant sites or paying by scanning QR codes. Additionally, users get exciting rewards on every transaction that they make using the wallet.

Mr. Bijith Bhaskar, Head- Digital Channels & Partnership, ICICI Bank said, “We, at ICICI Bank, focus on technological innovations to offer unique propositions that are simple, fast and convenient. Five years ago, we launched ‘Pockets’, enabling users to open a digital wallet instantly on their mobile phone and start transacting immediately. Our research suggests that users are keen to link their UPI ID with their digital wallet, so that they can directly use the balance in the wallet for smaller transactions while using their savings account only for the larger ones. Armed with this insight, we are delighted to have worked closely with NPCI to introduce this unique innovative solution in digital banking. We believe, the facility will provide immense convenience and the advantage of secured UPI payments to customers using ‘Pockets’ wallet.”

Ms. Praveena Rai, COO, NPCI said, “We are delighted to collaborate with ICICI Bank to launch the solution of creating and linking a UPI ID to digital wallet. This initiative will further democratize access to UPI and make it ubiquitous with digital payments by allowing consumers to directly pay through their digital wallets, in addition to the facility of paying from their bank accounts. UPI is a one-stop solution to payments of all kinds, both P2M and P2P, and this facility will provide an impetus to the burgeoning digital ecosystem in India. We at NPCI, constantly endeavour to create an evolved user experience by integrating technology with innovation, and the launch of this offering is a step in the right direction.”

To start using the facility, a new user needs to download and log-in to ‘Pockets’. On successful login, a ‘Pockets’ VPA is automatically created based on the registered mobile number of the user. For eg: 9999xxxxxx@pockets where ‘9999xxxxxx’ is the registered mobile number. There are no bank account details required for the creation of the UPI ID. Further, a user can also modify the auto-created UPI ID to an ID of his/her choice, through the ‘modify’ option under ‘BHIM UPI’ within the app.

An existing user can update their ‘Pockets’ app to the latest version and get going.

The advantages of UPI-linked ‘Pockets’ are:

 Scan and Pay: Users can scan QR codes and make payments at merchant outlets or other locations, through BHIM UPI on ‘Pockets’ app.
 Make and receive payments: Customers can use their ‘Pockets’ UPI ID to pay against a collect request sent by another user or app. They can receive money too by creating a collect request through entering a valid amount and the sender’s UPI ID.
 Pay to contacts: With this feature, users can seamlessly make payment to their contacts in the phone book.
 UPI payments at merchant sites: Users can make payments online at any merchant site by opting to make ‘payment through UPI’ and entering their ‘Pockets’ UPI ID. Once they enter their ID, a collect request is generated which can be accepted on the ‘Pockets’ app to complete the payment.
 Money transfers: Customers can seamlessly transfer funds from their ‘Pockets’ wallet to a savings account or any other ‘Pockets’ wallet, by entering the receipient’s ‘Pockets’ UPI ID or savings account details.

To know more about the Pockets UPI ID, visit: https://www.icicibank.com/Personal-Banking/bank-wallet/pockets/upi.html

ICICI Bank launches ‘Merchant Stack’; India’s most comprehensive digital and contactless banking platform for merchants

Aims to empower over 2 crore retail merchants in the country with seamless banking services, digitally
Offers instant banking facilities and value-added services in one place to enhance productivity and efficiency of merchants

Mumbai: ICICI Bank today announced the launch of its ‘Merchant Stack‘, a set of the country’s most comprehensive digital banking services specially curated for retail merchants. The array of banking as well as value-added services enables merchants — grocers, super markets, large retail store chains, online businesses and large e-commerce firms— to meet their banking requirements seamlessly so that they can continue to serve their customers in the challenging times during the pandemic. This initiative is in-line with the Bank’s principle of ‘Business with Care’. Retail merchants can avail of these contactless services, without visiting the Bank’s branches, at a time when people are advised to stay home and maintain social distancing. They can avail of these facilities instantly, on InstaBIZ, the Bank’s mobile banking application for businesses.

‘Merchant Stack’ provides a bouquet of banking solutions and value-added services in ‘one single place’ for the retailer eco-system. The main pillars of the stack are

1) a new account named, ‘Super Merchant Current Account’;
2) two instant credit facilities called ‘Merchant Overdraft’ and ‘Express Credit; both are’ based on POS transactions, and first in the industry
3) ‘Digital Store Management’ facility to help merchants take their business online;
4) exclusive loyalty rewards programme, an industry first feature;
5) value added services like alliances with major e-commerce and digital marketing platforms for expansion of online presence.

Commenting on the launch, Mr. Anup Bagchi, ICICI Bank said, “We always believe that the self-employed and the MSME segment forms the backbone of the Indian economy. A large part of this segment consists of retail merchants. There are over 2 crore merchants in the country with approximately USD 780 billion in value of transactions in 2020. They are expected to grow rapidly in the coming years. Through these trying times of the pandemic, it is our endeavour to enable the merchants with a digital banking platform that will help them to continue to serve their customers. We have thus launched the ‘Merchant Stack’, which most importantly offers a range of ‘contactless’ banking services, providing safety to the merchants and their customers alike. This new offering is part of our guiding principle of ‘Business with Care’. It is also a continuation of ‘ICICI Stack’ which we launched a year ago to offer retail customers all digital banking services from one platform.

We believe that the ‘Merchant Stack’ offers the most holistic array of banking and value-added banking services for the retail merchant ecosystem. Our research shows that this segment requires digital and instant account opening, multiple digital collection options in one place and quick working capital availability, among others. Armed with these insights, we have created a full stack that brings in a host of digital services specially curated for merchants. Further, all of the solutions are available on our mobile application, InstaBiz. We have also leveraged advanced analytics to use various parameters of POS transactions to offer instant overdraft and settlement of the swipes. We believe that this ‘all-in-one’ and comprehensive ‘Merchant Stack’
will provide easy digital banking to retailers, free up their bandwidth from paper-intensive procedures and thus boost their business growth by improving overall productivity and efficiency.”

The main pillars of the ‘Merchant Stack’ are given below:

Super Merchant Current Account: It is a zero-balance account linked to usage of the Bank’s POS (Point-of-Sale) facilities. The merchants can continue to get the advantage of the zero balance account for a lifetime, till they use these facilities. Any merchant, even if not a customer of ICICI Bank, can digitally open the account. The Super Merchant Current Account is available in two variants —Super Advantage and Super Advantage Plus — to suit the requirements of merchants as per the size of operations. Additionally, the current account offers retailers the convenience of transacting with their customers using multiple digital modes of payment including cards, UPI and payment gateway. Similarly, merchants also get various options for making digital payments for their businesses. They also get the benefit of instant reconciliation by using the Bank’s ‘Connected Banking’ platform, that integrates banking and their accounting system, saving them both time and effort.

Instant Credit Facilities: The ‘Merchant Stack’ offers two instant credit facilities, based on POS transactions — both being industry first initiatives. The first one, called ‘Merchant Overdraft’ empowers pre-qualified merchants with a linked ICICI Bank POS machine to get upto Rs 25 lakh digitally, instantaneously and in a completely online and paperless manner. The facility leverages advanced data analytics at the Bank to form a new scorecard with various parameters to assess the credit eligibility of merchants using their POS transactions. The new credit assessment method of the Bank is a marked improvement over the traditional industry practice of using only bank statements, financial statements and income returns to offer working capital facilities. Once the overdraft limit is set up, merchants can start using the funds instantly to meet their working capital requirements. This offers significance convenience to borrowers as they no longer need to wait for few working days to avail an OD facility.

Further, the Bank provides instant settlement of POS transactions with ‘Express Credit’. It offers enhanced convenience as merchants can instantly access the funds, in contrast to the industry practice of waiting for a few working days to get credit for sales on POS machines. To bring forth this facility, the Bank has undertaken two-fold initiative: One, it has leveraged technology to decongest the settlement process with network partner for movement of funds. Two, it has used advanced analytics to create an API, receive real-time information on transactions, check the profile of customer and credit the account—all within few minutes. The money is transferred immediately to the merchant’s linked ICICI Bank current account, 24×7, on all days including weekends and bank holidays.

Both the facilities aim to offer timely credit to merchants, including those who are new-tocredit.

Digital Store Management: For merchants wanting to expand their business in the online world, the ‘Digital Store Management’ platform is available. It offers a one-stopsolution, which enables merchants to transform their ‘physical store’ into a ‘digital store’ within half-an-hour. It also helps them to manage invoicing, inventory and collections.

Loyalty Programme: The ‘Mechant Stack’ offers a loyalty rewards programme for merchants, another industry first feature. With this, merchants using the Bank’s Eazypay facility to accept instant cashless payments from customers through POS/QR solution, get points for transactions which can be redeemed for shopping, vouchers, vacations among others.

The value-added services offered in the ‘Merchant Stack’ are:

Access to the new ‘One View’ ‘Merchant’ version on ‘InstaBIZ’ app: This comprehensive mobile app enables businesses to complete almost all their banking transactions digitally, without visiting a branch of the Bank. The ‘Merchant View’ offers all the features of the ‘Merchant Stack’ in addition to the other industry first features namely instant payment of GST, easy bulk collection and payments of funds through multiple modes, automatic bank reconciliation and inward/outward remittances among others. It also enables merchants to grow their customer base by creating marketing campaigns for customers of ICICI Bank.

Alliances services with major platforms: The Bank has tied up with a wide-range of companies, who are experts in concierge services like staffing and security, and online skilling courses for computers, new languages and accounting. Merchants can get services of these companies at a discount to streamline or expand their business. Further, the merchants can take the services of major e-commerce and digital marketing platforms for advertising and acquiring customers online.

State-of-the-art internet banking platforms: Availability of Corporate Internet
Banking (CIB) platform and Trade Online, a specialised digital platform for export-import
transactions.

State-of-the-art internet banking platforms: Availability of Corporate Internet Banking (CIB) platform and Trade Online, a specialised digital platform for export-import transactions.

Any merchant can enjoy the benefits of the ‘Merchant Stack’ by simply downloading the InstaBIZ app from Google Play Store or Apple App Store. Merchants, who are not the customers of the Bank, can also avail the benefits of the stack by instantly opening a zero balance current

account using the InstaBIZ app in a digital manner. ‘InstaBIZ’ can also be accessed on the Bank’s
Corporate Internet Banking (CIB) platform. account using the InstaBIZ app in a digital manner. ‘InstaBIZ’ can also be accessed on the Bank’s Corporate Internet Banking (CIB) platform.

For news and updates, visit here and follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ICICIBank

About ICICI Bank: ICICI Bank Ltd (BSE: ICICIBANK, NSE: ICICIBANK and NYSE:IBN) is a leading private sector bank in India. The Bank’s consolidated total assets stood at ₹ 15,73,812 crore at March 31, 2021. ICICI Bank’s subsidiaries include India’s leading private sector insurance, asset management and securities brokerage companies, and among the country’s largest private equity firms. It is present across 15 countries, including India.