India is a cash driven country and people are dependent on cash to make most transactions. While bill payment has been a major task for most Indian households, many people in urban areas are now slowly shifting to digital methods. And rural households are fast catching up with the next big payment revolution setting in.
Driven to make life simpler in rural areas by providing a one-stop
solution to the consumers to pay their multi-utility bills, Rohit Kumar
and Bohitesh Misra started XPay.Life in May 2019.
Rohit and Bohitesh of XPay.Life
The
platform offers a single window to pay bills, and is leading the rural
folk into digital payments by using a combination of mobile and kiosks.
It is empowering rural folk to make payments either by using cash or any
other digital payment channel.
The Bengaluru-based startup has created a blockchain-based transaction
framework that covers the complete spectrum of bill payment services
such as touch screen kiosks, web, mobile app, PoS device, and mobile ATP
Van. The blockchain framework brings government projects, cash
disbursements, and payments – all under one roof, so that every
transaction is recorded and verified for government schemes to be more
effective.
How it all started?
In 2015, Rohit started an IT Services firm called XIPHIAS, which was
building software and hardware for payment and utility kiosks. It also
offered multi-utility bill payments through touch screen kiosks using
cash in various government verticals.
During this time, Rohit met Bohitesh through CIO forums, and they
realised that they were equally interested in payments. Having worked in
the corporate sector for nearly two decades, Bohitesh has extensive
knowledge of various leading technologies with enterprise approach using
mobility, cloud, analytics, and blockchain.
At XIPHIAS Software Technologies, the two worked closely on many
projects and saw an opportunity to explore new ways of approaching
product development and village commerce, combined with an instinct to
work for the welfare of the society.
The success of these early experiments, where they could get rural folks
to use digital kiosks to make payments, validated the approach of a
blended online as well as offline mode of payments, which led them to
start XPay.Life in 2019.
How it works?
The startup has conceptualised a mobile van-based bill payment service.
It has a touch screen kiosk inside the van, which will visit various
strategic places in the remotest part of the villages where collection
is a big challenge.
At the kiosk, a user can pay multi-utility bills, including electricity,
gas, water, mobile, broadband, landline, and DTH using cash as well as
other digital payment channels. The kiosk also has a cash acceptor,
which accepts and validates the cash and reduces the possibility of fake
currency. A Point of Sale (PoS) device is also in place, which will
accept payments through debit and credit cards.
“As
per our research, 80 percent of rural population and 35 percent of
urban population still do not use digital payments, where our physically
installed touch screen kiosk will play a major role. However, for 20
percent of the rural population and 65 percent of the urban population,
XPay.Life is offering bill payments solution through online web, mobile
app, and hand-held PoS device to collect the utility bill payment,” says
Rohit.
To ensure security of the transactions, the startup has integrated a
Blockchain-based payment gateway. It follows AMBIC model, which means it
has Artificial Intelligence (AI), mobility, Blockchain, IoT, and
cloud-based solutions in the form of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS),
Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).
According to XPay, it simplifies the transaction and end-to-end customer
journey through ‘one-click’ processing for transactions in digital
channels.
“None of the competitors offer cash-based payments, but a research
report shows that India is a cash-driven country where 80 percent of the
utility bill payment is done via cash in rural India,” says Rohit.
Under the various government schemes announced by Prime Minister
Narendra Modi, this mobile van, apart from offering a kiosk for
payments, will also have a vending machine in which sanitary napkins and
condoms will be made available and distributed to rural people free of
cost.
Business model and revenues
XPay.Life provides both B2B and B2C services, and takes a part of the
billing fee. Under the B2C model, XPay.Life takes a cut from
multi-utility bill payments such as electricity, water, gas, mobile,
landline, DTH, and broadband through touch screen kiosks, web, mobile
app, PoS device, mobile van, and e-rickshaw.
Under the B2B model, it provides a complete ecosystem for entrepreneurs
to deploy payment gateway for collecting payment for their business,
irrespective of its size. Along with a payment gateway, XPay.Life also
offers to integrate and help startups and businesses with software tools
such as CRM, ERP, and web portals, which will help them kick-start and
boost their business with integrated payments gateway solution.
The startup claims to be currently clocking over Rs 100 crore of
financial transaction volume per month. However, it refused to disclose
details of the state that uses its touch screen kiosk at present.
“This collection comes from a single biller hailing from one of the
smallest states in India. We expect to deploy services for 253 billers,”
says Rohit.
Rohit has invested $1 million so far in the venture. Today, the startup
has over five lakh consumers who pay their multi-utility bills on a
monthly basis. The six-month-old startup’s revenue is less than Rs 1
crore at present, but it hopes to pick up volume as more people in rural
areas go digital.
Competition and future plans
At present, XPay.Life competes with the likes of Paytm and PhonePe.
Rohit and Bohitesh believe that their understanding of working with
governments in rural areas can help them scale faster.
It’s a complex business wherein the growing importance of innovations
coupled with the extensive use of technologies has changed the face of
payments worldwide. The fintech industry has grown massively over the
last couple of years, and has quickly moved on from its initially modest
offerings in back-office operations into areas such as payment,
trading, investment, retail banking, and more. The country needs several
solutions before people can move completely digital,” says Rohit.
Talking about future plans, Rohit says: “The company plans to deploy
25,000 touch screen kiosks for bill payment by next year, and one lakh
touch screen kiosks, PoS terminals, and mobile ATP vans in the next
three years.”
No comments:
Post a Comment