PayU Earmarks Rs 50 Cr for Its New SMB Payment Platform ‘PayUnow’, Also Buys ZOOZ to Explore Israel Fintech Market
Digital payments major PayU has launched a revolutionary platform, PayUnow, to bring small and medium businesses (SMBs) online. The new platform will enable offline businesses to create their online identity by having their own business page where they can accept all kinds of digital payments directly into their bank account. It offers instant sign-up with online KYC.
As per industry reports, less than 2% of India’s 50mn SMBs have an online presence. PayUnow aims to empower the remaining 98% SMBs who have not yet adopted digital mode for their business. While 30% of the SMBs are digitally engaged for personal use, 68% of them have no online presence at all. The SMBs need a platform to accept digital payments and create a digital identity. PayUnow addresses both these needs by providing them with such a platform. This acts as a catalyst in their revenue growth.
PayU plans to invest Rs 50 Cr in the product development and marketing of PayUnow over the next two years. The new platform will bring approximately 1 million merchants online by 2020.
Commenting on the launch of the new platform for SMB sector, Nameet Potnis, Business Head, PayUnow, said, “We endeavor to introduce products that will help provide solutions to SMBs. Currently in the beta phase we have over 5000 monthly active merchants doing over 200000 transactions per month. PayUnow empowers these businesses to grow fast by easily accepting all kinds of digital payments and also creates their online identity. This new offering from PayU India provides an opportunity to broaden the horizons of our initiatives for SMBs which are in line with the Government of India’s Digital India drive.”
PayU’s internal research shows that the payment collection process in the informal sector is very complex where businesses invest a lot of time and resources in collecting payments. They face several issues ranging from monthly collection limit on wallets, cheque bounces to NEFT unavailability on holidays, tracking the status of their payments etc. PayUnow now provides a solution to the cumbersome payment collection process by providing SMBs with a one-stop solution to digital payments. Customers, on the other hand, get a choice to pay via their preferred mode such as credit/debit card, net banking, UPI, wallets and are not restricted to download an app to pay the merchant.
PayUnow can be accessed on web and on mobile on on android. The iOs app will be launched soon.
In an another development, PayU has acquired Israel-based payments technology company ZOOZ for an undisclosed amount. As part of the acquisition, ZOOZ’s co-founder and CEO Oren Levy and CTO Ronen Morecki will become part of PayU’s global leadership team and will focus on technology and business development.
In September 2016, it had acquired Indian fintech company Citrus Pay for $130 million. Recently, it invested $18 million in Mumbai-based fintech company PaySense.
