New Delhi: PayU, India’s biggest online payments processor, launches a new platform, PayUnow, bringing the country’s small and medium businesses (SMBs) to the digital mainstream. 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 100 per cent online KYC.
As per industry reports, less than 2 per cent of India’s 50mn SMBs have an online presence. PayUnow aims to empower the remaining 98 per cent SMBs who have not yet adopted digital mode for their business. While 30 per cent of the SMBs are digitally engaged for personal use, 68 per cent 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 INR 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 also ensures the highest level of security for all transactions.
PayUnow provides an opportunity for SMBs to seamlessly transition from traditional way of offline business to new-age digital business and thus bring them to the digital mainstream. The top categories of merchants empowered by PayUnow are travel, education, software professionals, home entrepreneurs and restaurants. PayUnow can be accessed on web and on mobile on android. The iOs app will be launched soon.
