Leading payment solutions provider, Innoviti Payment Solutions, announced a significant upswing in the volume contribution of the fast-growing UPI payment platform to its overall payment transaction processing in offline retail stores after introduction of ML-based Path Predictor technology.  Path Predictor, a patented technology of Innoviti, uses Machine Learning to decipher patterns lying deep within millions of transactions passing through Innoviti to create models that dynamically and in real-time select the best path for a UPI transaction, leading to dramatic change in UPI success rates and a seamless consumer experience.

Since introduction of this technology, over the recent 3 months of Q2 2019, UPI@POS transactions at Innoviti have grown to contribute nearly 2% of Innoviti’s overall transaction processing volume. This technology was also used by Innoviti to enable Google Pay across its stores and the combination of UPI through Google Pay and Path Predictor has led to volumes climbing to nearly 10% for several stores.  The convenience from this seamless experience is visible with a nearly 21% repeat monthly usage of Google Pay by consumers for their daily purchases in such stores.

In offline retail, where card acceptance through POS is a must, the checkout experience using UPI was less than optimal due to high transaction failure rates.  With the addition of Path Predictor, Innoviti has crossed this hurdle and looks forward to a multi-fold surge in Google Pay and other UPI-based payment formats in the coming months.

Commenting on the partnership, Sajith Sivanandan, Business Director, Google Pay and NBU, India said

Our vision is to enable fast, seamless, and secure payments for our users anywhere, at any time, whether they are paying other users, buying products or services online, or shopping at a retail outlet. The offline ecosystem forms an important part of this objective and we’re excited to partner with Innoviti and facilitate this across the country.

Rajeev Agrawal, Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer of Innoviti said

We are very excited by the upsurge we are seeing in customer usage of UPI-based payments at physical stores after the roll-out of the Path Predictor tool. With rapid increase in payment transactions and increase in number of payment types, conventional technology approaches are unable to deliver desired consumer experience. Innoviti has been investing deeply into data sciences and machine learning to push the technological edge for our customers to the next level. We are delighted that our machine learning strategy coupled with superior integration with Google Pay is showing results for our merchants.

Google Pay has been deployed by Innoviti across 12,000 points of acceptance including in large pan-India retail chains like Reliance Retail, Vishal Megamart and others. It is being extended to Innoviti’s entire merchant base in a phased manner.  Across India Innoviti processes 5B$ of payments annually from over 1000+ cities, with a throughput per point of acceptance of 7000$, 2x of India’s average [as per RBI data].  Innoviti provides payment solutions to merchants doing digital billing, by integrating their billing and payment operations into one seamless flow.

CASHe, India’s most preferred digital lending company for young salaried millennials, promoted by serial entrepreneur and private equity investor V. Raman Kumar, has crossed Rs 1,000 crore in loan disbursements since its inception in April 2016. Backed by strong demand the company is eyeing to disburse another Rs. 1000 crore in the current fiscal, thereby earmarking a cumulative loan disbursement of Rs. 2000 crore by FY19~20.

CASHe has till date cumulatively disbursed 380,000 loans to over 200,000+ customers accounting for an average daily disbursal of Rs 3 crore. Top 8 metros account for upto 85% share of the Rs 1,000 crore of unsecured loans disbursed through the platform. The company receives over 3000 loan applications in a day and the average loan ticket ranges between Rs 35,000 to Rs 40,000.

CASHe attributes its impressive growth to incremental demand from existing customers, attractive product portfolio, higher ticket loan offerings and faster credit decisions facilitated by its AI-powered alternate credit rating system – Social Loan Quotient [SLQ]. SLQ uses big data analytics through predictive modelling and machine learning-based techniques on its large customer base to create instantaneous credit decision for its users. Standing sturdy with over 3.5 million registered users and an impressive customer rating average of 4.3/5, CASHe enables quick and easy access to short-term loans with low interests and easy EMIs for young urban working millennials which eliminates the hassles that traditional banking brings with itself.

Speaking on the announcement, the Chairman of CASHe, V. Raman Kumar said

We are excited about crossing the 1000 crore milestone and feel that we have built a significant scale in this space in a very short period of time. Fostered by an overwhelmingly positive customer demand, attractive loan offerings and product extensions and a 100% digitized process making borrowing seamless, faster and convenient for our customers CASHe is confident to sprint across a promising growth path in the coming years.

Innovation is at the core of our operations and we will continue to offer attractively unique and diverse products to our customers whilst setting new benchmarks in customer satisfaction and operational standards. I would like to thank our customers for their trust and continued support in building CASHe the brand it is today.

Ketan Patel, CEO, CASHe, said

We are proud to be able to process more than 380,000 loans for our customers so far and we are considering it as a fantastic response to our products translating into a 60% Y-o-Y growth. Having clocked an annual run rate of over Rs 500 crore in the last fiscal alone and backed by strong customer demand we are poised to achieve yet another Rs 1,000 crore disbursal target by 2019-20 fiscal.

On long-term however we are eyeing 10% share of the short-term unsecured lending market – a target we aim to achieve in the next 5 years. We will continue to offer our customers a superior user experience and instant access to credit wherever they are in India.

Recent analysis done by CASHe has found medical expenses was the top reason why millennials opted for digital loans and it accounted for almost 22% of the loan pie. While shopping for gadgets, electronics, wedding season, etc. also ranked among the top reasons. While 10% of the customers availed loans for travel, Christmas/New Year and Diwali were among the leading occasions when millennials opted for loans. Another interesting data point revealed that of the entire customer pie, females accounted for just 12% vis-a-vis 82% of their male counterparts

CASHe provides a range of short-term loan products ranging from Rs 10,000 to Rs 2,00,000 with a repayment tenure ranging from 15 to 180 days. Powered by its industry-first algorithm driven credit scoring platform, The Social Loan Quotient [SLQ], CASHe quickly determines a user’s credit worthiness by using multiple unique data points to arrive at a distinct credit profile of the customer.

SLQ is transforming the traditional credit rating measurements thereby providing immediate loans to the under-served young professionals who are kept out by traditional credit rating and banking systems. CASHe is completely digital and requires no personal intervention and no physical documentation. The average time taken for a loan to be disbursed is about 8 minutes, subject to proper submission of all documents.

MobiKwik, India’s leading FinTech Company has announced that it has emerged as the market leader among all the digital payment players [wallets, banks, payment banks] in the IMPS* fund transfer category in the month of May 2019 by clocking Rs. 362 crores in GTV [Gross Transaction Value]. The company has seen a 400% growth in its Funds Transfer Business in the last one year with GTV of Rs. 4,344 crores.

According to NPCI [National Payments Corporation of India] data, MobiKwik commands over 26% market share and has clocked Rs. 362 crores in terms of value of total funds transferred from its wallet to bank, ahead of all major digital payment companies in India. The company has also recorded the highest average value per transaction Rs. 5,363 which represents MobiKwik’s pole position in the segment with genuine use case driven transactions.

Consumer Payments in India is driven by four large use cases: 1. Bill Payments 2. Merchant Payments 3. Funds Transfer and 4. UPI. Funds Transfer is an important category because it commands the highest average transaction value and MobiKwik being ahead of all players in this category clearly indicates the high degree of trust it enjoys with its users.

The ‘wallet to bank’ feature allows users to instantly transfer money to any bank account through the digital wallet. The service is used by small merchants who accept payments via MobiKwik as well as by users who have taken digital loans in their wallets.Unlike NEFT and RTGS, the service managed by NPCI is available 24/7/365 days, including on bank holiday.Speaking on the achievement, Upasana Taku, Co-Founder, MobiKwik, said

We are thrilled to see our leadership position in the IMPS Funds Transfer business ahead of all banks, payment banks and wallets in India. This clearly shows that our efforts to build a secure fintech platform are being appreciated by users. We are now targeting INR 10,000 crores in IMPS GTV and 20+ Million users to use our IMPS service in FY20.

MobiKwik is now the first Indian owned company to have successfully launched and enrolled customers under its full stack of financial services – digital wallet, lending, insurance, investments in Mutual Funds and gold and payment gateway. It’s user base comprises over 107 Mn users, 3 million merchants, and 200+ billers.

Founded in 2009 by Bipin Preet Singh and Upasana Taku, MobiKwik has raised four rounds of funding from investors including Sequoia Capital, American Express, and Net1 of close to $120 Million.

Microsoft in collaboration with GA Partners, has provided a launchpad for enterprise software startups to address and showcase their solutions to solve the challenges the BFSI industry face today. The curated startup showcase event for Indian banks and non-banking financial companies saw 10 innovative startups who are at the forefront of India’s FinTech landscape and have demonstrated their ability to achieve enterprise scale. Microsoft is enabling startups to identify the risks, challenges and opportunities in the BFSI landscape and helping device a framework to assess the readiness of a startup to work with a large enterprise.Although startups have been gaining substantial visibility, their growth is often stifled due to increased competition and development of new-gen technologies. Niti Aayog expects the FinTech market in India to touch $31 billion by 2020 and there is a significant rise in the number of FinTech startups which are working towards developing innovative solutions for the industry.

The FinTech industry is also seeing the growing trend of unicorn startups – valuing more than $1 billion. Microsoft enables such startups to equip themselves with the required technologies, develop and showcase their solutions and expand their customer base.

Lathika Pai, Country Head, Microsoft for Startups, MENA & SAARC said

India today has the third largest number of startups which is really robust and addresses issues in every business segment. So, our focus is where can we help the most; how do we work with them to help increase revenues through our Co-Sell motion where Microsoft’s account managers will plug them in to our enterprise clients, geographical reach, management mentorship and more. To do that we offer B2B startups access to co-marketing and co-selling opportunities, deep technical architecture guidance and business mentoring through our Scale Up program.

Kannan Ramaswamy, Founder & Managing Partner, GA Partners, said

We are thrilled to be collaborating with Microsoft to help startups scale. GA Partners have been supporting startups with customer acquisition, tie up with relevant partners, and assisting in sales strategy and implementing them with our deep knowledge from the industry. We are happy to be providing a platform for startups to showcase their capabilities in terms of their solutions, apart from presenting their examples on addressing the challenges of BFSI sector.

During the event, Building a win-win ecosystem for Startups and BFSI Enterprises held in collaboration with GA Partners, Lathika Pai highlighted the company’s contribution in advancing opportunities for the startups to connect with industry leaders to effectively develop and build their solutions. The startups that addressed the challenges in the Indian banking industry and offered their solutions are

• FinBox – A comprehensive machine learning platform with proprietary data connectors. Businesses use FinBox for credit scoring, cross selling, risk management and to build data driven FinTech experiences.
• JusPay – Digital Payments Service enabling secure & frictionless payment experiences. Payment Service provider [PSP] neutral and PCIL1 compliant wrapper-layer that enables clients to scale their online payments and enable ALL payment options.
• Worxogo – A pioneering enterprise start-up that offers an AI coach to employees for improved performance, business impact. AI engine uses neuroeconomics, AI predictive analytics to act as a personal digital coach to improve performance of employees in companies, by using the power of Nudges which deliver personalized, predictive performance at scale.
• Growth Enabler – Provides intelligence on tech innovation and disruptive business models to help technology leaders resolve business challenges. AI is used to connect startups and companies, enables informed decision-making.
• Semusi [AppICE] – A machine learning based mobile marketing automation platform helping businesses build trustworthy relationships with their customers.
• VuNet Systems – A unified AI platform that truly connects your user experience, customer journeys, business transactions to your applications, infrastructure ad IT Operations.
• FORMCEPT – It’s flagship product, MECBot, enables enterprises to perform smart data discovery, auto-recognition of patterns, free-form search & configure ML, DL & Graph based algorithms that can scale dynamically & utilize hardware efficiently.
• StatAnalytics – Credit Nirvana is an intelligent Debt Collection platform that leverages ML/AI. It offers a real-time Collection Decision Engine for a focused and prioritized collection process, along with personalized digital follow-ups and messaging.
• DheeYantra Research Labs – DHEE.AI is a cognitive conversational AI platform from DheeYantra, capable of understanding and communicating between human-machine, in English and Indian vernacular languages.
• EPIKInDiFi – EPIK, a technology company started by Industry experts with an objective to build and provide products and platforms, services and solutions which will help the banks & financial institutions in improving their customer engagement, gaining operational efficiency, reducing implementation costs and achieve delivery certainty.

About G A Partners

Ganymede Advisory Partners [G A Partners] has created a network of industry veterans to provide Go to Market advisory to Indian startups. We help startups build win-win partnerships with Enterprises in Financial Services, Retail and High tech. While the focus is on enabling revenue growth and market-product fit, GA Partners also helps startups raise capital. For more information, please visit G A Partners.

The Payments Council of India [PCI] which constitutes more than 100 members across representing various regulated industry players in the payments and settlements systems made a presentation to the RBI Committee on Deepening of Digital Payments [CDDP] headed by Nandan Nilekani at their office in Mumbai.

Mr. Naveen Surya, Chairman Emeritus, PCI, Mr. Vishwas Patel, Chairman, PCI and Director Infibeam Avenues Ltd, Mr. Loney Antony, Co-Chair, PCI and Managing Director, Hitachi Payment Services and Mr. Gaurav Chopra, Executive Director, PCI met RBI and presented its key recommendations for driving financial inclusion through payments.

In its report the council has recommended a medium to long term strategy for accelerating the growth of digital payments in India backed by a regulatory regime which is conducive to enhancing parity between cash and digital payments, offering seamless access to payments and settlements infrastructure [RTGS], formation of a KYC bureau, promoting economic viability through tax incentives and exemptions, stimulating competition and offering customer choice while safeguarding transactional security and providing a level playing field to new entrants.

Considering cash is the most competitive and attractive payment option, the council has suggested that all the digital platforms especially PPIs should be allowed to seamlessly issue and allow payments and remittance transactions below INR 50,000/- with minimum KYC [mobile verified] which will enhance parity between cash and digital transactions.

Currently only Prepaid Payment Instruments [PPIs] have been partially allowed direct access to payment transactions through card networks and UPI; the council has suggested all payment entities should be given seamless access to all payment infrastructure and settlements systems. Interoperability to PPIs which is currently only allowed to merchants and remittances at the domestic level should be extended to foreign merchants and foreign inward remittances.

Other Key suggestions made by PCI

• Allowing cash out from PPIs through ATMs and agent networks for domestic remittances of unbanked population
• Leveraging Electronic Benefit Transfer [EBT] and Direct Benefit Transfer [DBT] processing through PPIs as an efficient and economical solutions
• Conversion of all PPIs to full KYC accounts within 12 months from issuance not to be time bound but the conversion should be based on the value and additional features availed by the customers

The council has suggested the non-bank merchant acquirers to be allowed to take direct membership with card networks to acquire merchants under their own BIN. Also settlements being an important function, the council has recommended a seamless access for non-bank entities to key payment systems like RTGS, and NEFT among others.

The council has suggested NBFCs to be allowed the issuance of credit card [physical or digital form factor]. PCI believes the credit card is one of the most critical instruments for the growth of digital payments in India. While approximately 40 million credit cards have been issued so far the credit bureau hosts 400 million+ consumer records, clearly indicating to the untapped market base. The council is therefore betting big on the credit card issuance framework by NBFCs to be play a catalyst for the growth of digital payments across the economy.

On the occasion, Naveen Surya, Chairman Emeritus, PCI, said

The monthly retail payments currently are aggregated at approximately USD $275 billion and we are eyeing for USD $500 billion in the next two years. This clearly indicates our country is on the verge of becoming a digital superpower.

However cash still reigns supreme and to digitize the cash use in the country we need to build a robust digital payments ecosystem besides enhancing customer faith in the industry. It was a great opportunity for us to present our recommendations to CDDP and we are confident that Mr. Nilekani who has played a critical role in building India’s digital story will help us transform the sector preparing it for the next phase of growth.

Vishwas Patel, Chairman, PCI on behalf of the council suggested considering a KYC bureau for the entire payments system owing to technological challenges in the central KYC registry system [cKYC]. He has recommended access to eKYC or digital KYC framework and an inter-operable KYC infrastructure as urgent and critical to improve customer acquisition cost across payment services besides avoiding cost duplication.

He also stated that ‘Government support in form of GST tax exemption in services like Domestic Remittance, Import duty on PoS etc. is key to drive investment and penetration in the middle and bottom of the customer pyramid.‘

The council has recommended the capital and net owned funds [NoF] should be proportionate to business as it is critical from compliance cost perspective. Besides they have suggested the payment service providers [PSPs] to be allowed to seamlessly cross sell third party financial products like credit, insurance [medical/accident] among others which will nurture sustenance of the business model while offering convenience to customers.

According to Loney Antony, Co-Chair, PCI and Managing Director, Hitachi Payment Services

All viable and profitable payment initiatives should be fully opened up to the market on a continuous basis to drive competition and innovation via ‘on tap licensing policy’ rather than a onetime ‘window’ approach. Besides all payment entities should have the option to move up or down the value chain provided financial net worth criterion is being met with.

Also in the absence of a Regulatory Sandbox an appropriate framework should run continuous pilots on new ideas and concepts under the industry and regulator’s supervision to foster innovation.

The council strongly recommends offering end customers the choice of deciding the level of KYC for payment transactions basis his frequency, convenience and risk appetite. They have also proposed for an independent security standard/ certification to establish online payment systems as ‘Safe to Pay’ based on fulfillment of the safety and security requirements, so as to give customers the trust to transact online in a safe and secure manner besides a framework for sharing of fraud related data [negative list of individuals] by PSPs to an independent body for better vigilance and controls.

The board of payment and settlements system to be strengthened with a full-time independent payment expert was another important suggestion.

About Payments Council of India [PCI]

Payments Council of India [PCI] is a part of Internet and Mobile Association of India and represents more than 100 players in the payments and settlement systems. Its objective is to address and help resolve various industry level issues and barriers which require discussion and action. The important stakeholders are prepaid payment issuers, payments banks, merchant aggregators and acquirers, payments networks, BBPOUs, UPI facilitators and International Remittances facilitators.