PhonePe partners with ICICI Bank on UPI multi-bank model

New Delhi, Jun 26 () Flipkart-owned PhonePe on Friday said it has partnered with ICICI Bank on UPI multi-bank model, giving its users the option to create and use multiple UPI IDs with ICICI and Yes Bank's handles.

"PhonePe has partnered with ICICI Bank on UPI multi-bank model giving its users the option to create and use multiple UPI IDs with ICICI Bank's '@ibl' handle and YES Bank's '@ybl' handle on the PhonePe app," a statement said.

This addition, in partnership with ICICI Bank, enables quick and contactless payments to over 200 million registered PhonePe users, the statement added.

In March, PhonePe had suffered a service outage for nearly 24 hours that had started after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) placed Yes Bank on moratorium at that time. Its team had worked overnight with the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and ICICI Bank to ensure all its services are up within a day.

PhonePe, at that time, had said it was working on adding more payment service provider (PSP) partners to offer its users more options for UPI transactions, even as it continued to engage with Yes Bank.

"At PhonePe, our effort has always been to give customers more choice while making their transaction experience seamless. Offering the '@ibl' handle to the users on our platform further solidifies PhonePe's already fruitful association with ICICI Bank," PhonePe Vice-President (Financial Services and Payments) Hemant Gala said on Friday.

With customers now being able to choose between multiple handles for their UPI IDs, PhonePe has achieved another key milestone in its journey towards making payments easy, secure and accessible to all, he added.

Bijith Bhaskar, head (digital channels and partnership) at ICICI Bank, said that with an increase in adoption of digital payments, ICICI Bank is partnering with PhonePe for extending UPI services.

"We believe that with this partnership, both ICICI Bank and PhonePe would be able to capitalise on their immense domain strengths for empowering customers to a seamless and simple digital payment experience," he added.

The new version of the app to add or create ICICI Bank's UPI ID will be gradually rolled out to the users in the coming weeks, the statement said. SR HRS