CEO Anand Bajaj Explains How PayNearby Is Making Digital Payments Convenient

Digitisation has nowadays been an integral part of our life. Be it education, business, banking or any other sector, digital methods are proving to be very beneficial and helpful making lives easier. Online payments are the biggest example to be used the most in this process.

In an interview with BW Businessworld, Anand Kumar Bajaj, CEO and MD of PayNearby said how the company is solving payment issues and making payment methods easier for people.

What's your take on the digital payments space that evolved rapidly during the pandemic?

Digital payments usage rose exponentially during COVID-19 in the country, resulting in a significant increase in transaction volume and value. At the same time, people in last mile Bharat had struggled to execute financial transactions where business correspondents (BC) networks played a crucial role. There has been a worldwide push toward digitisation as people opted for contactless payments to reduce the risk of transmission. This has given a major boost to digital payment adoption in the country and has helped in promoting new form factors and experiences in this sector. The pandemic highlighted the importance of digital payments, readily available at a store nearby, facilitating the ease of banking transactions to the masses. We think that the digital payments space in the country is still evolving, and we expect further growth with newer product inventions and positive frameworks from the Government bodies.

How is PayNearby solving the more significant problem of digital payment space, especially in the rural region?  

To make digital payments pervasive in the country, it has to be as seamless as accepting cash, both on the merchant and the consumer side. One of the reasons for digital payments taking a back seat in the country is that smaller merchants do not have the money to invest in infrastructure. Resolving this issue is PayNearby’s all-inclusive digital payments package for retailers which is form-factor agnostic and provides a wide choice to end consumers. It supports QR code payment, UPI payment, Aadhaar Pay, SMS payment, Card payment along with SoftPoS and MPOS. While SoftPoS allows merchants to accept contactless payments of up to Rs. 5000 through a simple tap and pay mechanism on NFC-enabled smartphones, our 2-in-1 micro-ATM + MPOS machine allows easy acceptance of debit/credit cards at the last mile. Customers can use any physical card or mobile with tokenisation and pay easily by using the above options.

With these options, we are addressing the national challenge of inadequate payments infrastructure and eliminating barriers to seamless digital adoption. On the acceptance side, merchants do not have to spend a lot of money to lay down the foundation of digital acceptance and expand their customer base and sales. On the consumer side, the solution is as easy, secure and quick as exchanging cash. We wish to build an ecosystem by adding to the number of acceptance points for easy and fast digital payments. 

Besides, Aadhaar ATMs played a crucial role in carrying out their basic transactional activities and bridging the gap between customers and their financial needs. These small-sized human ATMs became the backbone to disburse DBT (Direct Benefit Transfer) to the rural masses. In addition, we have also built a colossal network of one lakh micro-ATMs (MATMs), across the country. This has added strength to our robust Aadhaar ATM network, which together services more than Rs.4000+ crores of cash withdrawals monthly. Making Bharat digitally more self-efficient is the goal of the 'Digital India' movement, and PayNearby is undoubtedly paving the path in that direction with its product offerings. 

How do you empower the small retailers like Kirana Stores spread across the country?

The Kirana store has been a crucial part of the Indian economy as well as the social fabric. It enjoys a very high level of trust and familiarity with the citizen. Even during the pandemic, the humble Kiranas stood tall, offering seamless access to daily essentials to the citizens. With the government advocating the concept of Digital India, these retail stores are playing a pivotal role in achieving the complete digitisation of India. However, in India, retail is evolving, retailers are not. Retail is India’s largest industry, accounting for over 10 per cent of the country’s GDP and 8 per cent of employment. Despite its large size, the sector has remained predominantly unorganised due to the presence of local stores and vendors. To win in this changing landscape, the local retailers need to change too. To be indispensable to the consumer, local retailers must constantly update to accommodate their various needs. And, PayNearby is completely transforming the retail outlets and making them future-ready.

To mass modernise the retail sector across the country, we have recently launched the PayNearby NeoDukaan app to digitally upgrade our retail partners and gear them towards a better livelihood. NeoDukaan is a first-of-its-kind holistic store management tool aimed at digitizing the retail stores and accelerating digital adoption at the last mile. With multiple digital payment options, digital ledger for credit management and online wholesale procurement options, NeoDukaan looks to create a thriving ecosystem for the retail partners by empowering them digitally and bringing them at par with the current times. NeoDukaan is a game-changer for the mass retail community offering them opportunities to acquire new customers, engage better with existing customers and reduce the cost of operations. In addition, it will further accelerate the growth of the digital economy even across hinterlands and remote towns. We have enabled more than 41 lakhs plus retailers across 17,600+ PIN codes to have a strong online presence and ensured small and local shops are not left behind in the transforming digital world. 

How is PayNearby empowering MSMEs towards financial wellbeing with the help of technology?

Previously, MSMEs were more resistant to digital transactions due to tech-shyness, lack of awareness and infrastructure. However, the stage has changed during the pandemic. MSMEs needed to be empowered with the latest digital payment solutions in order to survive. Digital payments have helped the MSMEs service a wider range of customers. It has also brought ease and efficiency to their business operations by eliminating cash-based transactions, which are expensive and fraught with security challenges. MSMEs are slowly adapting to the digital way of life with PayNearby being instrumental in bringing Kirana stores and local retailers online and helping them be a part of the digital wave. 

But first, the retailers needed to evolve. It was imperative to make them aware that to stay relevant in this new age of virtual commerce and large format stores, they needed to embrace technology. Technology participation has led to visible growth in the MSME sector by opening up newer revenue streams. Today, any local retailer can augment his income by servicing his local community with basic banking and digital products from his store. From opening a savings account to instant remittances or cash withdrawal points, technology innovations have helped local retailers go beyond their organic business and double up as the area’s banker, ensuring not only more business but more loyalty from existing customers. 

As an organisation, PayNearby acknowledges the deep symbiotic relationship it has with the retailer community. Our NeoDukaan app is directed at upskilling, modernizing and digitally empowering the local retailers at the last mile. The brilliant store management tool is designed to equip the MSMEs with all the gears that are necessary to create a more empowered and a more engaged retail ecosystem in the country. At PayNearby, our sole purpose is to develop user-experience based products that assist our retail partners in providing better service to their customers. We have constantly been evolving, adding new features and upgrades to keep our MSME partners ahead of industry developments while automating operations to remove redundancies and giving our retailers a more pleasant experience.

Can you brief bit more on the company's model of (DaaS) Distribution as a Service?

PayNearby is on the mission to simplify high-end technology for consumption at the last mile so that there is a democratization of services and the advantages of the modern world are accessible to the masses. Towards this purpose, the company’s pizza bread strategy has ensured that a simple plug and play technology framework is available for partners to make their services available to 90% of Bharat through a large able network of more than 41 lakh plus retail partners. 

The Distribution-as-a-Service (DaaS) framework ensures that from banking to e-commerce, digital entertainment to education, from travel to easy lending solutions, partners today can make their services available to previously unserved regions of the country through local PayNearby micro-entrepreneurs at the last mile.

The simplified technology that forms the backbone of the DaaS platform enables fast, reliable and scalable solutions for the service provider at one end, and easy and stable consumption at local stores at the other end. It also ensures a quick go-to-market that is error-free and dependable, which is one of the key success parameters for any distribution led strategy. Enormous work that has gone into streamlining and scaling PayNearby’s indigenous DaaS platform has ensured that today the organisation holds the capability to reach out to 90 per cent of India and make all modern services available to Bharat. Financial and Digital services to the tune of Rs. 6500 crores monthly are conducted on the platform consistently, ensuring the interiors of the country are no longer left out of the benefits of modern advancements, and a steady stream of revenue for local micro-entrepreneurs and service provider partners.

Large enterprises find it difficult to make inroads and engage with the audience of the rural region. What role does PayNearby play in filling this gap?

We believe the next wave of growth in the country's economy is likely to come from rural consumption. While there is a massive demand for newer products from last mile Bharat, there is also a gap to access these markets. We are proud to claim that we have established a robust DaaS network that reaches out to the deep pockets of our country and effectively bridges the gap between conglomerates and rural audiences. Our tech-backed network enables big enterprises to access the inaccessible audience in the shortest possible time. Today, we serve and manage customers of multiple brands that showcase the technology prowess developed by us.

What are your expectations from the upcoming budget announcement for the year 2022, or any expectations from the government that will boost the digital payments space?

The digital payments space has proved its mettle as a stable growth avenue during the pandemic. A positive impact was seen on digital payments due to benign taxation for self-service digital customers. To ensure the same benefits reach the less-savvy citizens, our government could waive GST and TDS for financial inclusion services at BC outlets across India. A GST and TDS waiver will help reduce the cost of offering seamless financial assistance and help high-end tech reach the technology-oblivious segment. We stand with the government's intent to take digitization to the last mile and pass the GST waiver benefit to the end-users. This will push for greater financial inclusion and a digital economy.

Moreover, the low-income citizens are mostly catered to by low-earning retailers who barely cross the value of taxable income, and hence, do not file IT returns to claim a refund of TDS. Thus, TDS is only a cost to them and not a refundable deduction because they do not know how to take a refund by filing returns. We sincerely hope that TDS for income below Rs. 50,000 a year can be waived. We are optimistic that this Budget will consider the grim working condition of the BC network and make the needful regulatory changes to ensure the viability of a community that has been vital in driving the cause of financial inclusion and democratization of digital payments in the country.