In order to become an all-around payments hub, PayU recently announced plans to launch its own Digibank services in the country. The digital payments startup expects to complete the set up by next 12-18 months and aims to provide banking services to those who are unbanked and have no access to credit. It will put PayU directly in competition with Paytm, Airtel payments bank, and other such emerging platforms.
The company’s plan lines up with a bulk of acquisitions and investments made by PayU over the past year. It recently acquired Mumbai-based Citrus Pay for a sum of $130 million, one of the largest deals to have ever occurred in the niche. Moreover, the company tied up with Axilor Ventures, an early-stage investment firm for a startup accelerator program, focused towards fin-tech startups. It also led the Series A funding round worth $6.5 million for fintech startup ZestMoney.
Witnessing the progress of PayU India in the domain, the company is all geared up to compete with other significant players operating Digi-banks in India. The demonetization exercise along with the Digital India campaign further proves to be a plus point for the company to initiate such services.
Shedding further light on the plans, PayU CEO B Amrish Rau said,
We have over 3 lakh merchants using our platform. We count one entity or company as one merchant and the base is growing every month. When we start Digibank, we will tie up with others that will host our customers. It will be hassle free banking along with our own financial products. We plan to set this bank in next 12-18 months.
He further told the press that the company is anticipating revenues of $100 million (Rs 654 crore approx) by the March 2018. Seemingly the figures dictated by the latter hints towards the strong financial condition of the venture, considerable enough for going ahead with a launch of its Digi-bank. These whopping revenues credit to transactions worth Rs 6,000 crore witnessed on the platform in January. The company aims to double this number over the next one year.
PayU secured a PPI license, about a year ago. It thus eliminates the need to set up to set up a brick and mortar structure for its Digibank. It recently started providing credit to individual customers using the platform. The payout is instant and in the range of Rs 1,000 to Rs 2,500 without any documentation but is based on the credit profile of the customer. PayU picked up 20% share in the startup ground concerning its interests and is further open for acquiring firms that operate in the credit business segment.
Since Aadhaar is holding the center stage these days, it will become the locus of PayU’s business gradually. Commenting on the same, COO Shailaz Nag said,
We are going to come out with a UPI-led payment product. Faster payment is really how you do a quick transaction and get on with it. How do I use a mobile number to create a transaction? It could be a QR code, it could be UPI or it could be NFC. We will invest in faster payments.
