RuPay Credit Card Linking With Amazon Pay UPI Soon: Vikas Bansal

NDTV Profit

Watch RuPay Credit Card Linking With Amazon Pay UPI Soon: Vikas Bansal - NDTV Profit on Dailymotion

Transcript

00:00 Thanks for tuning in to BQ Prime.

00:02 The festive season is coming up and there's naturally a lot of excitement among consumers

00:07 as well for online shopping as well.

00:09 Joining me for a conversation is Mr. Vikas Bansal from Amazon Pay India.

00:13 Mr. Bansal, thank you so much for taking out the time and talking to us.

00:17 Thank you for having me.

00:18 Thank you, sir.

00:20 Before we begin, and before you were addressing the media as well before this conversation,

00:25 you brought out a very exciting, very interesting data point actually that almost 77% of the

00:32 Amazon Pay customer base in Maharashtra is opting for UPI as a preferred channel of payment.

00:40 So if we talk about that in general about the whole UPI ecosystem, it is still very

00:44 dominated by a couple of players.

00:47 And Amazon Pay has somehow not been able to get that sizable chunk in my opinion.

00:51 So why is that and how do you plan to tackle that?

00:55 First of all, I think UPI is a very important and exciting innovation that India has brought

01:02 to India and now taking to the rest of the world.

01:05 So from Amazon Pay perspective, we continue to be excited and investing behind UPI in

01:11 a big way.

01:12 Now, in terms of a focus, if you think about UPI, when we started, we started out where

01:19 you could link your bank account and make payments.

01:23 Then from there, we added wallets because customers who were not having functional bank

01:29 accounts, they could link their wallets on UPI and use it everywhere.

01:33 And now building upon that, we are now also having Rupe credit card holders to be able

01:40 to link UPI and we are very excited to launch it and announce it very soon.

01:45 And we continue to invest in that direction now.

01:49 To that investment, if we look at our user growth and user base, we have more than 8

01:54 crore customers who have already signed up for Amazon Pay UPI on our platform.

01:58 So it's very large.

01:59 Now, in terms of focus, our focus has been on how do we first solve problems for large

02:05 merchants, including Amazon.in.

02:07 And from there, then we continue to take it to other merchants and then to small merchants.

02:10 So I think where we've invested and focused, we've seen some really good results.

02:16 I'll give you one data point to say our user base, our user on Amazon shopping has doubled

02:25 in the last one year.

02:27 And it shows to the investment and the product offering we are bringing to the space.

02:31 Now when you look at the overall ecosystem, there is a very large percentage of offline

02:35 scan and pay type transactions.

02:37 There are like 70-75% are those and that's where we are now focusing and investing.

02:43 If you ask me, are we bullish?

02:45 We are absolutely bullish.

02:47 Are we investing?

02:48 We are investing.

02:49 Are we getting customer love and adoption?

02:51 Absolutely.

02:52 But it's very early days.

02:53 That's what I would say.

02:54 All right.

02:55 I think it's only fair and good to be bullish as well.

02:58 And while answering this, you also brought in the point of creation of wallets.

03:02 And I think that is one another focal point here of my conversation with you.

03:07 When we talk about wallets, lately, even if I see the RBI data and the numbers as well,

03:11 the creation in terms of the number of wallets has gone up, but the transactions have not

03:16 kept in line or not kept in pace with that.

03:19 Why is that happening?

03:20 And how do you plan to improve that bit?

03:23 Yeah, see, look, wallet has a very important role to play when it comes to cash digitization.

03:31 Because when you go really outside of tier one to two, three, four cities in India, customers

03:37 are looking for a very lightweight way to open an account, put some money, their cash

03:43 into the account and use it for digital payments.

03:46 And that's where wallet has a very important role to play.

03:49 Now, when you look at it in the past, wallet was built on proprietary acceptance, proprietary

03:55 meaning that I will give you a wallet, I will build my own network of acceptance network.

04:00 And this is how I would use it.

04:02 But now, with now wallet being interoperable on UPI, it allows customers to or us as a

04:10 player to not build like a proprietary acceptance, but then plug it into UPI so that the customers

04:15 can use it everywhere.

04:16 So now, you know, you see that suddenly I'm able to put a lightweight way open an account,

04:23 put some money in, you know, don't pay any maintenance, account maintenance charges,

04:27 and then use it to pay everywhere.

04:28 So I'm not restrained by any proprietary acceptance.

04:31 And you will see that the growth is going to be pretty sizable, significant going forward,

04:37 latching again onto UPI.

04:38 To me, these are all sources of funds, and then you have UPI and how you use it.

04:43 So you will see it's pretty exciting space for us, because it's solving unique customer

04:47 problem that, you know, the other products are not able to solve.

04:51 So that's, that's, you do see growth happening.

04:54 Oh, absolutely.

04:55 I would say.

04:56 All right.

04:57 Thank you.

04:58 So before we take away from this whole payments thing, I really want to touch upon the payment

05:02 aggregator bit with you.

05:05 So you got an in-principle approval to bring it up.

05:09 Have you heard anything from the RBI?

05:11 Is there any update in where, what is the status on Amazon Pay's end at this point?

05:16 When we talk about the process, right, so, you know, you apply for it based on all the

05:22 due diligence, you get in-principle approval, then you have to, you know, conduct audits

05:27 and other requirements and what we call operationalization, and then you get the final approval.

05:33 So what we have is, as you rightly mentioned, you know, we have the in-principle approval

05:37 from RBI.

05:38 Thank you to the regulator for, you know, putting trust in us.

05:42 Now we're going through the next steps of the audit and operationalization and, and

05:47 all the formalities.

05:49 And once that is complete, we will hear back from the regulator.

05:52 So that's where we are right now.

05:53 I don't have anything more to add at this point.

05:55 As of now, you've not heard from the regulator.

05:57 No, we continue to engage with them because there's a lot of, as I said, there's an operational

06:01 part of it, operationalization, which is about audit, answering questions, you know, doing

06:06 all those things, we are in process.

06:08 Okay, fair enough.

06:09 Thank you for that clarity.

06:11 One last thing that I really want to touch upon, if we look at the payments business

06:14 in India, or largely in general, it's largely seen as a free business in terms of the earning

06:21 revenue as well.

06:23 If you could help me just understand, are there any revenue earning opportunities in

06:28 that business?

06:29 And if they are, how do you see that expanding in the near future?

06:32 Sure.

06:33 First of all, like if you think about payments in globally, right, payments is a massive

06:38 high scale, low margin business.

06:40 So I don't think it is, you know, to say like, look, it's zero indefinitely, it might be

06:47 now, but I think you will have some scale with low margins, you will have some margins

06:52 in it, right?

06:53 On top of it, let's think about merchants, merchants want to grow their sales.

06:58 And if as a payment and a player, if I can help them grow their sales and provide some

07:03 value added services like affordability, you know, like, you know, customer rewards, and

07:09 other things, loyalty solutions, if I can bring those solutions, merchants are willing

07:13 to pay, because if we are getting the sales, you know, they are willing to share some of

07:17 those with their providers.

07:19 So that's number one, right?

07:21 So there is also at the same time, there's also an opportunity from customer to say,

07:25 if I'm providing that convenience, for example, you know, you are you earlier had to go, you

07:31 know, do something and for example, pay your bill, and now you could pay at your home conveniently,

07:37 in like, literally, like in less than a second, or less than a minute, then you have a convenience

07:42 and then there is some fee that customers will be willing to pay.

07:46 So as you as the India grows, you will have revenue streams on the core business coming

07:52 from both merchants and customers.

07:54 That's number one, right?

07:55 On top of it is, you know, you have like, from there, how do you help expand credit?

08:00 And as you expand credit, can you share some margins and revenue from that?

08:05 And then from there, how do you continue to add new value added services, like, you know,

08:09 financial services, insurance, and other things where you can make some margins, I would say

08:14 like, there's definitely revenue pools, you know, it will take for market to stabilize

08:19 and for it to capture those pools.

08:22 But you know, that's what we are hoping for is how do you serve customer needs and also

08:26 run a very profitable and sustainable business.

08:29 And those are some of the ideas or opportunities that I see in the future on how, as a payment

08:34 player, we will make money or even the industry will make money in the business.

08:38 All right.

08:39 Thank you so much for that lovely chat with us, sir.

08:41 And thank you for giving the time.

08:42 Yes.

08:43 It was my pleasure.

08:44 [MUSIC PLAYING]

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended