ICICI Bank and Axis Bank have tied up with global e-commerce major Amazon and cards major Visa to launch a retail payments entity, which will be a rival to state-owned NPCI. Concerns over concentration risk and a need to fast-track cashless payments had led the RBI to invite applications for a New Umbrella Entity (NUE) to rival the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which currently delivers services like UPI-based payments. ICICI Bank and Axis Bank will be co-leading the consortium with a 20 per cent stake each.
ICICI Bank is a leading private sector bank in India.