Digital payment firms lock horns with BharatPe

Digital payment firms lock horns with BharatPe

Digital payment firms have also reached bent RBI to prevent the on-ground marketing gimmicks adopted by BharatPe
Paytm had served a legal notice to BharatPe in May, with the latter withdrawing the rival advertisements on its app

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BharatPe
Bengaluru: BharatPe has waded into controversy again, with rival payment firms, sending legal notice to the New Delhi-based company for allegedly circulating flyers that tag its competitors as Chinese or American, consistent with three people conscious of the matter.

Digital payment firms have also reached bent Federal Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to prevent the on-ground marketing gimmicks adopted by BharatPe to push its quick response codes (QR code) at offline retail points, consistent with people conscious of the matter.

In August, BharatPe’s on-ground staff started distributing pamphlets to merchant partners calling out the ownership of competitors Paytm, PhonePe, GPay and Amazon Pay. The pamphlets called out Paytm’s significant ownership to be ‘Chinese’, while the remainder of the players were tagged American.

Mint has seen a replica of those pamphlets and other marketing material.

“BharatPe has been running aggressive on-ground campaigns to smear the reputation of rival payment firms. it’s also been using names and brand colours of its competitors, to position itself as an Indian company against rivals. this is often while it raises funds from US-based risk capital firms Sequoia and Ribbit Capital,” said an executive of a payment firm.

In May, BharatPe also redesigned its QR code with the Indian tri-colour and ran in-app advertisements, calling other QR-codes as foreign or Chinese. The rival QR codes placed within the advertisement had striking brand colour similarities to rival PhonePe and Paytm, with spoof names – ‘FoneSe’ and ‘Payum’ thereon .

Paytm had served a legal notice to BharatPe in May, with the latter withdrawing the rival advertisements on its app, consistent with another payment executive, quoted above, who didn’t want to be named.

“In its reply to Paytm, BharatPe clarified that it had been calling its own QR Indian and not deeming Paytm as a Chinese company. it’s just like the company has stopped these pop-up advertisements, ever since,” said the payment executive mentioned above.

Paytm and PhonePe declined to comment.

A BharatPe executive said that it’s been distributing the marketing pamphlets to merchants, which contained the ‘significant ownership’ of its rivals, for the past month.

“We pride oneself within the incontrovertible fact that we are an Indian company and have the word ‘Bharat’ in our name and logo. Also we’ve redesigned our QR code to feature the Indian tri-colour. At a time, when the govt is looking out for Indian innovation and apps, why shouldn’t we showcase our ‘Indian’ identity, and thru our campaign we aim to realize just that,” said Ashneer Grover, founder and CEO, BharatPe.

“Our aim is to portray BharatPe as an Indian company and what we’ve mentioned within the pamphlets is simply the ‘significant ownership’ of various companies. Other players also are liberal to run campaigns to showcase their Indian heritage,” Grover added.

Competitors have also accused BharatPe’s on-ground staff of disfiguring QR codes and stickers of its rivals. Some firms are even looking to write down to the corporate regarding an equivalent .

“As a code of conduct, we don’t encourage our onground staff to interact in activities, which involve tearing or disfiguring rival QRs at offline retail points. If there are any instances of this reported, we immediately take punitive action against the concerned person. We believe healthy competition and shopkeepers should have the selection on the QRs they place first ahead of the customer,” said Grover.

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