Truecaller Partners Airtel, ICICI and Google

Truecaller today announced a groundbreaking partnership with Bharti Airtel, ICICI and Google for Airtel Truecaller ID, Truecaller Pay and video.

Airtel Truecaller ID extends the caller ID feature of Truecaller to Airtel’s non-data users using feature phones, and will be delivered to users via Flash SMS before the call hits the users mobile. This subscription based service will ease a user’s life from unwanted spam calls without having to subscribe to data service or buy a smartphone.

Starting in April the service will start rolling out in India, and all feature phone users with Airtel mobile service will be able to subscribe to “Airtel Truecaller ID” by Truecaller.

Raj Pudipeddi, director – Consumer Business & chief marketing officer, Bharti Airtel said, “Airtel has been a pioneer in introducing innovative product solutions to enhance customer experience and we are delighted to announce this partnership, which will be a global first. Airtel and Truecaller will enable millions of feature phone users to enjoy a ‘smartphone like’ experience in offline mode and add to their mobile experience.”

Truecaller has also signed with ICICI Bank to build a financial service on top of its mobile identity platform thereby offering one stop solution for secure mobile payments. Truecaller users will be able to create their unique Virtual Payment Address (VPA) in the app, and can instantly send or receive money using any Unified Payments Interface (UPI) supported bank.

The service powered by ICICI bank is absolutely secure and follows 2-factor authentication as per RBI guidelines. All the banking & transactional data of the customers is securely handled by ICICI bank conforming to NPCI and RBI guidelines. Truecaller will not park any money or handle sensitive data such as account details, credit/debit card information of its users.

Abonty Banerjee, senior general manager & head – Digital Channels at ICICI Bank said, “We are delighted to offer our UPI platform to Truecaller which is one of India’s most widely used mobile application. With this new service, users will get the benefit of making quick and easy payments to any mobile number registered with the BHIM app, thereby enabling them to reach out to a wider section of people."

Truecaller has also announced a strategic agreement to integrate Google Duo, a high quality video calling service, within the Truecaller app. This will add a crucial communications layer that strengthens the value of Truecaller’s wildly popular dialer, caller ID, and spam blocking app already used by more than 250 million users globally.

Truecaller integration with Google Duo will be available in the coming months for Android and iOS as a permission-based service, where users will be able to opt-in and out at any time.

Amit Fulay, head of Duo at Google said, “With this Truecaller integration, we’re able to bring a better video calling experience to millions of new users.”