For more than 20 transactions, bulk FIRC fee will be levied at Rs. 2000. The move is in line to reduce the cost incurred in receiving payments from global markets and to encourage merchants to grow their cross-border business and realize the Government’s Make in India vision.
Narsi Subramanian, Director, Small Sellers & Consumers, PayPal India said
The reduction in the FIRC fee is in line with our commitment of becoming a customer champion and enabling merchants to grow their cross-border business in a profitable manner.
FIRC is a document that acts as a testimonial for all the inward remittances entering India. Most of the statutory authorities accept this document as proof that an individual or a business, such as a limited company, partnership firm, sole proprietorship firm and others, has received a payment in foreign currency from outside the country.
The freelancer market in India is growing immensely and PayPal is committed to help Indian freelancers improve profitability and improve the payment experience.
ToneTag, a sound based proximity payment technology provider launched an Audio Pod for merchants. ToneTag Audio Pod is as simple as just tapping a phone on a Pod to complete a transaction. On tapping the phone on the ToneTag Audio Pod, the pod emits a sound wave carrying data that is received by the mobile phone. On confirmation of the same, the payment is complete.
Image Source – ToneTag
From the invention of wheels and flint stone tools to Nano-technology and artificial intelligence, man has always produced technologies and machines that make his life easier. In today’s world, technology is everywhere! Everything we do involves technology. It is completely integrated into our lives and the two have become inseparable. Even the way we make payments has evolved significantly. Today, we have different types of payment technologies available, including cards, mobile payment options such as NFC, QR codes, RFID chips, e-wallets, applications and many more.
But what about a device that can be placed anywhere and can enable payments via sound without any dependency on Wi-fi or internet? Sounds intriguing, right? That is because we do not associate sound with payments, but with more traditional things such as music. But why should the beneficial nature of sound be curtailed or confined to producing just music? Why can’t one utilize sound based technology to make payments? Well, with ToneTag Audio Pod, you can!
ToneTag Audio Pod is a device that can be used by any merchant irrespective of their scale of operations or nature of the business. This device can be that trigger which enables mass acceptance of digital mode of payments amongst merchants. In our push towards a digital economy, a device like the ToneTag Audio Pod can bring in both the merchant and the consumer segment to accelerate the digital drive.
ToneTag Audio Pod is a one stop solution for everything in payments.
Enables quick and faster checkout at stores, with transactions being completed under three seconds and thereby acting as a queue buster
Any issuer, merchant or acquirer can use the ToneTag Audio Pod to receive payments
Payment acceptance from any e-wallet or banking application
Payment experience is better when compared to prevalent methods
No congestion and rush at stores, giving merchants and customers a pleasant retail experience
Works in offline conditions. No data connection required
Robust build quality, combined with state of the art design features
The pitch finale of #BuildOnIndiaStack, Venture Pitch Competition, organized by iSPIRT and Dalberg was close-fitting. With over 180 entries, the selected 12 finalists from diverse sectors such as e-governance, health care, education, fintech, environment and agriculture presented their ideas to a full-house audience.
EasyGov that bagged the first position was awarded a cash prize of Rs. 3 lakhs. EasyGovis a cloud solution to help billion people of India to discover the entitlement from thousands of welfare schemes from the Government. EasyGovsolution will help in rolling out 10K+ schemes in local language to enable people check family entitlement from phone.
The runner-ups, Journeeand Megdapreceived prize money of Rs. 2 lakhs & Rs 1.5 lakhs respectively. FreeSave and Krishiyogreceived consolation prize. The winners now look forward to interact with Nandan Nilekani, who has agreed to mentor them for shaping their ideas.
The founders of the winning startup, EasyGov, Amit Shukla and Vineet Sharmasaid
IndiaStack has created enabling environment for democratizing the government welfare scheme delivery. Acceptance of eSign document at all government offices can make it really big. We thank #BuildOnIndiaStack to provide us a platform to showcase our efforts.
Technology evangelist, Nandan Nilekani who has also been at the forefront of the digital agenda in India said
IndiaStack was being used mainly for Fintech. It however has vaster potential. It needs to be extended to education, health care and skill development amongst others. India Stack provides access to features such as the Digi-Locker, eKYC, eSign, UPI that can re-invent these sectors and make them accessible to the common man. #BuildOnIndiaStack was organized to embark upon this journey and interact with entrepreneurs that would be keen to serve the unserved and underserved. India Stack can be source of massive inclusion for India’s population.
The panel of jurors comprised of stalwarts from the impact and social entrepreneurship industry like Bindu Ananth, Chair of IFMR Trust and IFMR Holdings; Srikrishna Ramamoorthy, Partner, Unitus Seed Fund; CV Madhukar, Investment Partner, Omidyar Network; Varad Pande, Partner, Dalberg Global Development Advisors and Sanjay Jain, Chief Innovation Officer, CIIE. The jury had a deservably difficult time to shortlist 12 entries from the total 180+ entries that #BuildOnIndiaStack received.
IndiaStack has tremendous potential to encourage innovations for India’s mass market. This eve put the spotlight on a number of such applications & entrepreneurs and will help create more focus on mass market business models
Varad Pande, Partner at Dalberg who also was on the jury panel said
Today’s pitch presentations demonstrate the passion of our young innovators and the potential of technology to serve India’s 1 billion underserved. This competition is the start of a journey to support innovative tech-enabled solutions that “Build for Bharat”. We at Dalberg are excited to be part of that journey.
Jury panel with the winner EasyGov, Founder – Amit Shukla and Vineet Verma
IndiaStack is the largest application programming interface [API] in the world supported by an open API policy by the Government of India. The stack is a new technology paradigm that is scalable to handle massive data inflows, and is poised to enable entrepreneurs, citizens and governments to interact with each other transparently, creating an ecosystem to develop innovative ideas to serve the 1.1 billion people on the platform, specifically the BOP population.
Sanjay Jain, Chief Innovation Officer at CIIE and who has been associated with the IndiaStack initiative said
The strong finalists, and the diversity of entries shows that entrepreneurs believe that they can make a business which meet the needs of the underserved. This sends a strong signal, which is further strengthened by the interest from the VC community in this event. I am confident that this will lead to more entrepreneurs and investors looking at the country well beyond the top tier of the economy.
#BuildOnIndiaStack also created a platform for entreprenuers to interact with various partners of the eco-system. Investment Partner at Omidyar Network, C V Madhukar said
Today’s event brought to the fore the entrepreneurial energy in India that is attempting to solve important public problems. As entrepreneurs think about using the India Stack, investors have an opportunity to invest in companies that protect the privacy of individuals, especially in light of today’s judgement by the Supreme Court making privacy a fundamental right.
The competition was open to all innovations that leverage the IndiaStack to unlock new business models and/or reach previously underserved, new customer segments across diverse sectors such as financial services, education, healthcare and others.
Some core focus areas for the competition also included digital lending and supporting activities, such as alternative credit scoring; sector specific digital services such as health insurance or education loans, skilling and certification, property registration agreements, patient-centric healthcare management; and SaaS platforms ‘As A Service’ that support the development of other India Stack based innovations such as Digi-locker or e-sign providers.
Our priority at Unitus is to invest in startups that can disrupt the way financial services is delivered to the masses. This competition has facilitated that in a big way and we want ventures to keep building on India Stack.
At least 40% of all businesses will die in the next 10 years… if they don’t figure out how to change their entire company to accommodate new technologies.
Digital transformation in its simplest form means the use of technology to radically improve performance & reach of enterprises. But it does not merely stop at that. As technology becomes a permanent fixture in everyday life, the best organizations combine digital technologies with strong leadership to bring about real transformation.
Business and IT leaders are eager to fully utilize key digital technologies such as analytics, mobility, social media, IoT, Machine Learning and smart embedded devices to vitalize their customer relationships, internal processes and value propositions hence, bringing the much needed digital evolution.
Even though the digital transformation is a long journey with the gradual evolution of the organization, there are a few key elements which are to be taken care off while beginning the transformation endeavor. Implementing advanced digital technologies, improving customer experiences, transforming internal processes, re-evaluating and designing improved business models and bringing to the fore your key value propositions are some of the key elements of a digital transformation exercise.
Digital Evolution is more of a business evolution than a technology initiative. It has created a rapidly changing business environment and has compelled companies to rethink nearly everything they do. Pro-actionaryapproach along with quick adaptability and flexibility is required for an organization to stay on the leading edge of the digital landscape.
This is a time of DigitalDarwinism – an era where technology and society are evolving faster than businesses can naturally adapt. Therefore, as companies look at moving business platforms and technologies, corporate leaders face an endless list of initiatives to consider, prioritize, evaluate, validate and implement. The challenge is to ensure that their priorities are aligned wisely. Without any strategic direction, every single attempt to evolve digitally can end up disjointed and ineffective.
It’s no surprise that digital evolution is an ongoing wave of new technologies and capabilities that are coming at us at an unprecedented pace. The major one being the datarevolution which has emerged as a new weapon in the industry in the recent years. It is being generated, combined, recreated and consumed at significant levels which are facilitating changes within the organization.
But the question to be asked is Are companies investing in the right technology for their Big Data needs in addition to the training of marketing and IT personnel?
Given the speed of evolution and scope of impact, an organization needs to fully understand the opportunities to be gained and lost, spot important trends and identify its competitors in order to evolve along with the world and its gadgets.
Cybersecurity is another major concern when we talk about digital evolution. The world currently deals with approximately 2.5 million cyber security threats per second. Most of the business leaders are reluctant to innovate due to cyber risks. However, these risks are worth dealing given the plethora of opportunities that digitization offers. Else, sitting on the sidelines and not responding to the market conditions and threats will become the fastest way to extinction.
With the new Modi Government at the helm, we as a country are making great strides in digital transformation. Reforms like demonetization, GST, and Digital India will act as stepping stones in helping the country’s businesses and economy to digitally enable and transform them.
Digitization is a gift to the organizations though it takes investment, agility and relentless focus to stay ahead. The road to digital evolution is far from easy but it carries great incentives for businesses and customers alike. The digital industry could be an important vehicle for change and it could provide the opportunity for India to dramatically expand its role and influence in the global economy enabling it to become a powerhouse of digital innovation.
About the Author
Mr. Asoke K. Laha is theFounder, President & CEO of Interra Information Technologies. Interra Information Technologies has been a leader in the Information Technology Industry since its founding in 1996. Headquartered in California, the company’s operations and sales network spans across multiple countries. You can learn more about them at www.interrait.com. You can also connect with Interra Information Technologies on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn.
Bengaluru based start-up Liv.ai has launched Speech recognition technology in nine Indian languages to enable businesses to reach out to people who communicate in their regional language instead of English. As an alternative to typing, people can now use their voice to text chat on apps like Facebook and Whatsapp speaking in their own language.
Liv.ai has a simple vision to empower people to interact with their devices, businesses and government using their natural voice. Businesses can use it to create digital assistants in regional languages, transcribe audio/video files, setup voice based IVR and do intelligent speech analytics. Liv.ai APIs can be integrated to applications across devices including mobile phones, tablets, PCs, TVs, Speakers, Set-top Boxes & even Cars.
Liv.ai’s innovation enables people to benefit from progress in technology without the need to use English as a medium of communication and many a times without the need of people being even a literate. Necessity to write and speak in English continues to keep people away from using technology to its full potential. Liv.ai’s Artificial Intelligence [AI] breakthrough enables people to break their linguistic barriers and be heard in their own language.
Brainchild of three friends from IIT Kharagpur – Subodh Kumar, Dr Sanjeev Kumar and Kishore Mundra, the Liv.ai platform recognises voice in all major Indian languages namely Hindi, Punjabi, Kannada, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati and Marathi. Along with what they proudly call the best AI team in India, the co-founders have been working for more than three years in developing speech and language based applications for Indian languages. While global mobile phone brands and biggest Apps during the same period were expecting over a billion people to use their products in English only.
Liv.ai had predicted rightly, the advent of business automation, launch of voice commanded devices such as smart speakers and need for traditional uses such as transcribing will revolutionise the AI enabled technology landscape. In a recent report, McKinsey Global Institute stated that in the year 2016, companies invested between USD 26 billion to USD 39 billion on AI technologies and top two areas were robotics and speech recognition
Stressing on the basic need for local language speech recognition, Subodh Kumar, Co-Founder and CEO, Liv.ai said
People in India are not proficient in English, but the technology ecosystem has been built around English. We at liv.ai recognized that global solutions may not work here and thus we envisioned solution specific to India which in hindsight has proved to be a right decision.
Liv.ai has already been integrated with leading Indic keyboards allowing people to use their voice to send emails, messages or post on social networks. In addition multiple large businesses are integrating Liv.ai’s APIs to automate their customer care. The technology is well-designed to work amidst background noise without loss of data.
The team led by some of the brightest minds in Artificial intelligence in India promises to augment the technology space with newer products to bring voice recognition capability to a billion people in our country.
For more information, please have a look at the Demo of Liv.ai
ICRIER, one of India’s leading think tanks, along with Broadband India Forumhave released findings of its study on ‘Estimating the Value of New Generation Internet based Application Services in India’.
As per the study, a 17% increase in the total internet traffic in India in 2015~16, contributed to an increase of Rs. 7 lakh crore in Gross Domestic Product [GDP], of which at least INR 1.4 lakh crores [US$ 20.4 billion] was due to Internet based app services.
This puts the Internet’s contribution to India’s GDP at about 5.6% in 2015~16. The contribution is estimated to grow to nearly 16% of the country’s GDP by 2020 or INR 36 lakh crores [USD 534 billion], of which apps will contribute about half.
The study was unveiled by Hon’ble Minister of Communications, Govt. of India, Shri Manoj Sinha in the presence of senior Government dignitaries from MeiTY, TRAI, Niti Aayog and champions of the broadband industry.
[L-R] Shri T.K. Arun, Senior Journalist; Shri T.V. Ramachandran, President, BIF; Smt. Aruna Sundararajan, Secretary DOT GOI; Shri Manoj Sinha, MOS (IC), Ministry of Communications and IT, GOI; Shri M.F. Farooqui, Chairman, BIF; Shri Anil Kaushal, Member, TRAI; Dr. Rajat Kathuria, Director and CE, ICRIER at the launch of a report by Broadband India Forum and ICRIER on ‘Estimating the Value of New Generation Internet based Application Services in India’
With internet penetration and the start-up ecosystem achieving critical mass, we felt the time was right to study the micro level impact of the internet services and apps on the country and define interventions needed for long term growth. Interestingly, we found that the ecosystem’s contribution went beyond just economic into social areas such as mainstreaming the differently abled and enabling women safety among others.
The study, beyond econometric estimations, also captures in-depth case studies of 16 service/app companies capturing impact generation at a micro level in key sectors of travel, healthcare, education, entertainment, utilities, digital payments, social, navigation and Government services. Companies covered include Makemytrip, Practo, PayTM, Urbanclap, Netflix, Wynk, Byju’s, Truecaller, farMart and MP Mobile.
The case studies bring alive different aspects of impact created, such as potential for increased income and job creation, easy access to credible information and Government services, lowering costs for buyers & sellers, creating a platform for smaller businesses and individuals to market their products and services, popularizing the use of vernacular language and enabling women safety among others.
Internet apps and services are disrupting traditional industries. Regulation, globally, is evolving to strike the right balance between protecting consumer/business interests and encouraging the ecosystem to innovate further. India needs to chart its own course from a policy/regulation perspective considering the significant higher impact on its economy. It needs to resist the temptation to follow global precedence or come up with defining laws without active stakeholder discussion.
The study also makes 10 recommendations on the demand and supply side to ensure long-term growth of the internet services and apps economy and its sustained contribution to India’s GDP.
About ICRIER
ICRIER is an autonomous, policy-oriented, not-for-profit, economic policy think tank. ICRIER’s main focus is to enhance the knowledge content of policy making by undertaking analytical research that is targeted at informing India’s policy makers and also at improving the interface with the global economy. It has been ranked amongst the top 3 Indian Think Tanks World Wide by the 2016 Global Think Tank Index Report, University of Pennsylvania. For more information, please visit ICRIER
Datanet India, a sixteen year old Information Technology enabled Services Company, has launched the much needed District Factbooks for India which will provide the compiled publications of the latest district level socio-economic data. This data will be available for 560 out of 640 districts in India for over 15 categories. Datanet India is in the business of collecting and compiling district level data for past 15 years and has 720 web sites.
Earlier these district level data, collected through government agencies, were not available on one platform and the government publications were published late. Datanet Factbook will help simplify the work process of collecting data by compiling all the data and making them available on one portal.
All passionate data-seekers would benefit from this one-stop data guide to make out easily where the district stands in the Indian platform. The statistical data, maps, graphs and charts shown offer the exhaustive information about a particular districts. Considering the potential usage of these District Factbooks, these are being made available online at its portal Datanet India Ebooks and are also being offered in print, eBook and web access formats to cover the vastly scattered users.
The socio-economic data is mainly used for the district level strategic planning and research by the policy makers, academicians, researchers and marketers to assess the status of a particular district on various socio-economic parameters. The data would further help in comparing different districts within a state and also with the nation.
Talking to the media about this launch, Co-founder and Director of Datanet India Dr. R.K. Thukral said
Datanet India has 720 websites and is into collecting data on India, its sectors, regions states and district and has been serving the socio-economic research fraternity in India and abroad for the last 16 years. The efforts of Datanet India have been recognized by Limca Book of Records for having the largest cluster of websites providing socio-economic statistical data.
Datanet India had ventured with its first web portal IndiaStat in 2000 and since then has increased its services many fold. IndiaStat, a prime website of Datanet India which is the most comprehensive e-resource of socio-economic statistical data about India and its states, is now a cluster of 56 associate sites, out of which 19 web sites are sector-specific, 31 web sites are state-specific and 6 are region-specific.
In January 2010, the company introduced DistrictsOfIndia which provides socio-economic statistical information of 620 districts, out of 640 districts of India, as per census 2011. It had launched its portal ElectionsInIndia in 2013 which provides constituency-wise election data, since independence, for all the 543 parliamentary and 4120 assembly constituencies in India. Besides, the company has also published many publications related to pre and post – electoral analysis.
Dr. R. K Thukral, Co-founder and Director of Datanet India, added
The books on statistical data of Indian districts are few and far from comprehensiveness. Out of 640 these District Factbooks have been released for 560 districts and remaining 80 districts are under process. The categories covered in these fact books are Administrative Setup, Demographics, Economy, Market size, Life style, Infrastructure, Industries, Labor and Workforce, Agriculture, Education, Health, Environment and Pollution, Housing, Crime and Law, Social and Welfare Schemes, Electoral.
Datanet India’s services are being subscribed by all the IIMs, IITs, ICSSR & ICAR institutions. Other than these Indian Institutes almost all the Ivy League Universities from USA and Cambridge, Oxford & LSE from the UK are the few esteemed members. They claim that these District Factbooks will be useful for Academicians, Government Officials, Economic Researchers, Marketers, Media Professionals, Strategic Planners, NGOs, Consultants, Policy Makers, Libraries, Start-ups, and Political Scientists.
About Datanet India
Datanet India was established as an IT-enabled private limited company in February 2000 to render its services in the socio-economic information domain. As its core activity, Datanet collects, collates and compiles in ready to use socio-economic statistical data about India, its various sectors, regions, states and districts to make it available online. For more information, please visit Datanet India
Considering that certain queries from customers are generic in nature with regards to BHIM, NPCI has developed a common website for dissemination of information through videos and infographics.
The website will meet the needs of the customers for general information on BHIM and incentive programmes launched by the government in the form of BHIM referral programmes. Through simple tools like product videos, customer can have self-learning instead of calling banks and NPCI.
Customers can be benefited by knowing how to transact online using BHIM App through their mobile phones along with information pertaining to the number of banks and merchants live on BHIM. Currently there about 50 banks availing UPI services and customers of these banks can make use of any UPI application. BHIM is a generic UPI application developed and supported by NPCI. Once the customer downloads the application, the customer can customise it for his/her bank.
NPCI has also increased its social media presence by consistently updating information through our verified social media handles. Customers can also make use of the dedicated phone number for BHIM 022 – 45414740and verified social media Twitter page @NPCI_BHIM for their queries.
About NPCI
National Payments Corporation of India [NPCI] was set up in 2009 as the central infrastructure for various retail payment systems in India and was envisaged by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) as the payment utility in the country. For more information, please visit NPCI
