Made By Bharat, Made For Bharat, Paytail Is Revolutionising Offline Retail With No-Cost Paperless EMIs

With the recent rise in purchasing power of Indians, domestic consumption, one of the main drivers of the Indian economy, has seen a significant spike. What’s more, the surge in domestic demand isn’t limited to just Tier 1 cities. Indians residing in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities and towns are engaging in discretionary spending. This has led to a blue ocean opportunity of millions of small and medium-sized merchants that fintechs can capture with unique offerings.

Paytail is one such fintech that is empowering millions of Indian merchants with instant digital finance. We recently interacted with Mr Vikas Garg, Co-founder & CEO of PayTail, to know how they are helping Indian merchants that have been left uncatered by the traditional NBFCs.

How does paperless EMI work?
Instant approval and disbursal of personal loans that do not require a physical touchpoint and zero to minimal human intervention are the attributes of a paperless EMI. The app-based money lending ecosystem utilizes a data-backed credit lending model comprising traditional and alternative user data to sanction loans in less than 30 seconds.

Paytail’s users can transact digitally within its ecosystem through a QR code, and merchant users can create a pre-loaded cart for customers. Once the credit is activated, the transaction gets completed in three steps. Paperless personal loans save time, offer convenience, and are the future of offline store retail checkout.

What is the potential of the services you offer at Paytail?
Paytail’s product is built for the masses to achieve a digital borderless Bharat. In the next 4-5 years, we’ll enable category-focused trade between over 150 million households that buy from over 300,000 retailers across India. We are currently bringing gamification for a small merchant’s store with the tools required to convert potential buyers instantly. For consumers, our paperless credit service and ease of use make it a go-to option for all future purchases.

What numbers are you at currently? How have you managed to hack this growth?
We are currently clocking INR 950 crores of annual GMV run rate and are aiming to cross INR 2000 crores+ in the next five to six months. The main growth drivers are tech product-related efficiencies, a large pool of capital supply on the platform from top lenders of the country and our focus on partnerships with sizeable category leaders.

We learnt very early on in the business that the main buyer of our product is the small merchant. Our thesis is that one of the best growth hacks is when you don’t have to sell the product rather, the customer buys it because of the value they get. Therefore, we are creating a competitive advantage by bringing an interesting mix of new products for retailers allowing us to create a large enough long-term moat in this business.

How many retailers and corporates do you have on board?
We have EMI acceptability rails running across 85,000+ retailers across the country. All the stores have been onboarded through 45+ Institutional partnerships, which include some large Indian and Multinational brands.

Can you name some retail partnerships that have been the top sources of your growth?
The retailer partnerships have significantly contributed to the growth trajectory of Paytail, where our transactions with brands like Voltas Beko, Vguard, Apollo, Hero Cycles and Bluestar have skyrocketed our growth curve.

Any regulations or challenges you can think of?
The perception of regulations is different from what it is. The spirit of the regulations is to bring in more transparency, safeguard borrowers’ interests and to create a rulebook for all the ecosystem players. Incumbents, who are happy to play by the rules, will not face any real challenges that can’t be mitigated with ease.

The Indian regulatory authorities have created space for everyone to operate and deeply recognize the value that fintechs, banks, and NBFCs can bring together. For instance, the recent digital guidelines by RBI have been extremely helpful in setting out a confident playbook between digital lenders and REs, weeding out fly-by-night operators and separating the value creators from opportunists.

Where do you target to be in the next few years?
In the next 3 years, we aim to be the largest affordability service provider in offline stores outside of Tier 1 cities. Also, we see ourselves emerging as the leaders in some underserved Indian states in the South and East.