Yes Bank eyeing a piece of Paytm’s outgoing merchant base

The UPI market is big enough for traditional banks and technology enabled financial services players to co-exist rather than compete, according to Yes Bank’s managing director and chief executive officer Prashant Kumar.

“There is a lot of discretion in the country around the entire market share being concentrated with a few players. We are only saying there is a huge market. So we are also coming out with our solutions and giving convenience to the customer,” he said during a press meet in Bengaluru. The private lender earlier this month launched a mobile application for retail UPI payments.

More than revenue from transactions, the UPI offering would allow Yes Bank to cross sell and upsell its other products to retail customers, he said.

The bank is also betting on increasing its merchant base as Paytm faces a decline in its own numbers on account of RBI’s regulatory action against Paytm Payments Bank, which many merchants had used as their settlement savings account but won’t be able to post March 15.

“It’s a good opportunity. Paytm has a large (merchant) customer base and it will be a good opportunity for any bank,” he said.

Acquiring this merchant base would allow the bank to increase its share of current account savings account (CASA) and increased revenue through transaction fees, Kumar explained.

DH had earlier reported that many traditional banks, including Yes Bank, had jumped on the opportunity to acquire Paytm’s merchant accounts less than a week after RBI’s directive, hoping to capitalise on the trust in traditional banking.