On Monday, IDFC First Bank partnered with Swedish company Crunchfish to pilot a project demonstrating offline retail payments.

IDFC First Bank will be part of the RBI’s pilot project to enable offline payments, the private bank said, adding that the project will provide digital payments even without a network.

Crunchfish has designed a unique digital payment solution for merchants and customers under RBI’s Regulatory Sandbox Programme, IDFC First Bank said in a release.

“The project will support digital cash platform-based offline retail payments in the Indian payments ecosystem. IDFC FIRST Bank will be one of the first few banks to participate in the HDFC Bank pilot project,” it said.

RBI approved the application to certify offline payments between the two banks. The Development and Demonstration Agreement, a non-commercial agreement, has been signed to give IDFC First Bank access to the Digital Cash SDK. The commercial terms of the deployment will be specified in the software license agreement.

Madhivanan Balakrishnan, Chief Operating Officer of IDFC FIRST Bank, said, “The app will help simplify transactions for customers. It aligns with the bank’s philosophy to participate in this pilot project and provide customers with unique services.”

The Regulatory Sandbox was established by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in 2020 to facilitate responsible innovation in financial services, facilitate efficiency and benefit the end user.

“Signing the agreement and adding IDFC FIRST Bank to the RBI pilot programme is very satisfying as it and HDFC Bank can demonstrate offline payment interoperability.

“Interoperability between the banks will be key to the adoption and success of the offline retail payment solution we are developing with both banks and will demonstrate to the RBI,” said Crunchfish CEO Joachim Samuelsson.

IDFC First Bank was formed from the merger of the former IDFC Bank and Capital First. The bank has expanded to 707 branches, 253 asset servicing centres, 867 ATMs and 578 rural business representatives.