Cashfree Introduces Contactless Payments Solutions To Enable India’s Expanding Virtual Learning Ecosystem

Cashfree, India’s business payments platform, has launched a suite of payments products, for EdTechs, educational bodies like schools, colleges, universities and coaching institutes, and ERPs, which allows safe, easy and efficient contactless fee collection, staff payouts, and payments to other vendors and service providers. With the launch of this payments suite, Cashfree’s goal is to help the education industry offer a convenient and a safer way for students and their guardians to pay online while allowing faster and efficient payment collection and disbursal for the EdTechs, educational institutes, and ERPs.

Akash Sinha, CEO & Co-founder of Cashfree said, “The global education space is evolving rapidly as it witnesses a paradigm shift. Amid the rising need for paperless payments, we aim to offer simple and efficient solutions, designed keeping in mind the unique requirements of all types of educational setups and EdTech firms, to enable contactless and frictionless payment collection and disbursal.”

“With our education payments suite, we intend to provide superior digital payments experiences to over 5000+ schools, colleges, universities, coaching classes, EdTech, and ERPs by the end of 2021, while allowing students and guardians to transact digitally, using their smartphones instead of spending hours in long queues,” he added.

The Education Suite by Cashfree includes payment solutions such as:

● Payment Gateway for EdTechs and ERPs - Facilitates contactless in-app or website fee collection via over 100 payment modes including net banking, cards, UPI, among others.

● Fee payment via WhatsApp and UPI for educational institutions - Guardians/payers can open WhatsApp or any UPI mobile app and enter the unique virtual account ID to initiate payment.

● Payment links and payment forms to collect fee without a website - Build a custom payment form or upload a simple file to generate payment links in bulk and notify the users via WhatsApp, SMS, email alerts

● Payouts - Facilitates instant staff payouts and payments to other vendors and service providers. Using Cashfree’s API, all payouts can be triggered directly from the business bank account via IMPS or UPI.

EdTech and educational institutes can integrate Cashfree’s education suite with their ERPs and bank accounts to initiate direct disbursals. Similarly, Cashfree’s Marketplace Settlement can be deployed to split the received funds with the service providers and vendors.

Recently, Human Resource Development Minister Ramesh Nishank Pokhriyal, revealed in an interview that schools might reopen after August. India has around 33 crore students, and to avoid any more slack in the academic learning, schools, colleges, coaching centres, and other institutions are investing to revamp operational infrastructure, setup virtual learning platforms, and online payment options.

EdTech platforms are now recording an increased number of enrolments for courses, ranging from professional, academic to vocational courses.

Cashfree has also recently introduced industry-specific suites for insurers and lending businesses, as well as announced the launch of its Instant Settlement feature, which helps enterprises access funds within 15 minutes of payment capture via its payment gateway as compared to the industry standard of 2-3 business days. The feature helps online businesses with increased working capital availability and has reportedly witnessed rapid adoption within the first few weeks of its launch.