Bangalore, July 7 2017: The indigenous smart phone industry—both hardware and software—is increasingly  harnessing government's post-demonetization e-payment initiatives to create a good value proposition for Indian customers.
A plethora of apps and tools were launched by government to ease the transition to an electronics payments era since November last: agencies like National Payments Corporation of India ( NPCI) and Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) rolled out multiple solutions under the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and leveraging Aadhaar numbers. But it has been a hassle to use them—because banks were slow to make their own gateways compatible.
Now, 7 months down the road, things have improved: almost all participating banks have completed their end of the payment interface. More usefully the Indian smart phone industry has seen customer value in pre installing such e-payment tools in their handsets.
Indian handset maker Karbon has just unveiled India's first smartphone—the K9 Kavach 4G—with the BHIM app (Bharat Interface for Money) pre installed and integrated. The app can be used in multiple Indian languages and scroll down list allows the user to select any of the Indian banks to register.
With a 1.25 GHz Quad Core CPU, 1 GB RAM & 8 GB Storage (expandable up to 32 GB), the  5 inch HD phone offers 5MP front and rear cameras and is fuelled by the latest version of Android 7 (Nougat) OS.  It comes with a 2300 mAh battery and the dual SIM phone works with 4G VoLTE networks.
It is arguably one of very few phones in its price band—Rs 5290—that offers a fingerprint scanner. This can be used to secure your banking apps and additionally different fingers can be programmed to open different apps and functions. The finger print scanner also doubles , usefully, as a front camera clicker.
Says A. P. Hota, Managing Director & CEO, National Payments Corporation of India: “Availability of BHIM in multiple languages on Karbonn phones, will cater to people from distinct regions with ease. This strategic partnership is a significant step towards providing acceptance tools for facilitating digital payments in India.”