Mumbai-based fintech company ePayLater has entered a partnership with Indian Railways’ ticket booking platform – IRCTC. This new partnership will allow customers to purchase tickets on the booking platform and then complete payments within 14 days of buying the ticket.
According to Akshat Saxena, the co-founder or ePayLater, there are measures that have been taken to ensure that customers pay their dues. He adds,
The eligibility of a customer will be checked through past transaction history, social media and other parameters. The process will work similar as to giving a personal loan. If the individual fails to pay, legal action will be taken
Uday Somyajula, also a co-founder of the fintech company stated that the focus of ePayLater in this partnership is to use data science to solve challenges that crop up in real life. He said,
Partnering with India’s largest online portal is a strong testimony to our technology and analytics leadership. By providing customers this deferred payment option, we not only simplify the checkout experience, but also help them manage their short-term income-expense mismatches better
First time customers signing up on the IRCTC website will have to submit their basic details, including email ID, mobile number, as well as a government ID such as PAN or Aadhaar card when they first check out.
Following this, customers can finish the current transaction, as well as subsequent ones, by simply using a one time password (OTP) sent to their mobile phones. IRCTC records show that the platform amasses almost 6 lakh transactions each day. ePayLater hopes to capture at least 5 percent of this volume within the next six months.
The company was founded in 2015 by Saxena, Somyajula, and Aurko Bhattacharya. It has managed to raise over $2 million till date. ePayLater has tied up with other companies in the past to offer the ‘buy now, pay later’ service. This is even more convenient than the option to accept cash on delivery.
Payment solutions offered by this company greatly help online shoppers, as well as the e-commerce industry, face challenges today. Akshat Saxena also added,
We are hopeful that this partnership, by virtue of the scale that only IRCTC can boast of, will help us deepen the roots of financial inclusion in the country. Further, on account of the benefits that this product offers to the customers, we also hope to see a higher uptake of e-ticketing with this initiative thereby increasing the adoption of digital payments over cash
