Central Bank of India has launched Bharat Connect for Business, integrating invoicing, collections, and settlements into a single digital platform aimed at streamlining transactions for small and medium-sized enterprises.
Central Bank of India has become the first public sector lender to roll out Bharat Connect for Business, a platform developed with NPCI Bharat BillPay that is designed to let companies generate invoices, collect payments and settle transactions digitally. The bank unveiled the service at the NPCI Pavilion during Global Fintech Fest 2026, with Kalyan Kumar and Noopur Chaturvedi present, according to Telangana Today and The Statesman.
The new system is aimed at making business-to-business payments more streamlined by bringing invoicing, collections and settlement into a single digital flow. In practice, that means buyers, sellers and banks can transact through one connected process rather than relying on a patchwork of manual steps, according to the company announcement cited by Telangana Today and the reports carried by The Statesman and Equity Bulls.
The launch also places Central Bank of India in a growing field of institutions building on NPCI’s Bharat Connect network. Axis Bank has already said it was the first bank to go live with a B2B collections solution for a Fortune 500 client using the same platform, while fintech provider Setu describes Bharat Connect-based tools as a way to combine invoicing, reconciliation and payment tracking in one place.
The bank and NPCI Bharat BillPay said the service should be particularly useful for small and medium-sized businesses, which often face slower, more fragmented payment processes. Industry commentary from NBBL has also framed Bharat Connect for Business as part of a wider effort to create a common digital layer for India’s MSME-heavy economy, where supply chains often involve multiple systems and frequent transactions.
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