In a significant turn of events, Yes Bank has witnessed a remarkable surge in its monthly Unified Payments Interface (UPI) transactions, marking a notable upswing since its collaboration with fintech giant Paytm. The partnership, initiated last month for migrating user accounts, has yielded remarkable results for the banking institution.

During a press conference held on Saturday (April 27), Prashant Kumar, the managing director and CEO of Yes Bank, revealed that the bank’s monthly UPI transactions have escalated substantially. “Before the partnership with Paytm, we were seeing around 3.3 million (33 lakh) UPI transactions. Now, we are witnessing a staggering increase to 5 million (50 lakh) monthly transactions on UPI,” Kumar stated, as reported by Moneycontrol.

It’s noteworthy that Paytm forged a strategic alliance with both Yes Bank and Axis Bank for UPI payments on March 15, coinciding with the implementation of Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) restrictions on Paytm Payments Bank. Previously, the payments bank had powered Paytm’s UPI payments infrastructure.

Kumar further highlighted Yes Bank’s dominant position in the merchant UPI transactions segment, stating, “Our market share in merchant UPI transactions is around 55 percent. This gives us an advantage on fee income, and we may look at cross-selling products to them in the future.”

The genesis of this narrative can be traced back to January of this year when RBI imposed various restrictions on Paytm Payments Bank, including the prohibition on UPI facility and fund transfers. Subsequently, these restrictions came into effect on March 15, prompting Paytm to seek alternative backend banks to facilitate UPI transactions. This quest led to partnerships with Axis Bank and Yes Bank.

As a consequence, all new users registering for UPI on the Paytm app now receive new handles. Yes Bank has already initiated operations with the handle @ptyes for a select group of users, while customers opting for Axis Bank will be assigned the handle @ptaxis.

Furthermore, Yes Bank has commenced the process of migrating existing 9 crore @paytm handles, indicating a seamless transition for users.

This latest development follows Paytm CEO and founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma’s recent announcement confirming the completion of the migration process for merchant customers from Paytm to new payment system provider (PSP) bank handles.

The turbulent past months have seen Paytm’s stock decline by nearly half since the onset of troubles at Paytm Payments Bank in January. On Friday (April 26), shares of the fintech closed 0.57% lower at INR 376.90 on the BSE, reflecting the ongoing market dynamics and transitions within the payment ecosystem.