Paynear started their journey in 2013 after scrapping multiple business models right from e-commerce to marketplace and finally choosing what they were best at.
They were greatly inspired by Square from USA with a prediction that the increase in smartphone usage in India should be instrumental in bridging the demand-supply gap for making the economy digital for a cashless nation.
They co-founded Paynear 3 years back when we resigned from EBS after it got acquired by a French conglomerate. Its been more than 13+ years now we have been breathing payments. Paynear is a brain child of Prabhu, co-founder of EBS and it is co-founded by myself, Anil Bhardwaj, Maulik Shah, Ravi Kiran & Krishna Kishore. Paynear is not a dream come true, it’s a passion, determination, inspiration, creation and the only thing we know to do.
After launching MPOS we realized that the market needs more than just a card swiping solution and a year after we launched India’s first Omni-channel solution Paynear ONE that offers a card present, card not present solution, third party wallets, EMI, UPI, Internet banking along with value added services like money transfer, MINI ATM, bill payments, recharges, bus tickets all on one single application and platform. Paynear merchants can earn additional revenue by just downloading our app from Google Play store or App store with no additional costs.
They are the India’s first ever Omni Channel transaction solution. It’s a simple and easy to use smartphone/tablet app that can be downloaded from Google Play Store and Apple App Store. Paynear ONE enables business owners to accept payments from their customers, earn extra income through value added services, and manage their businesses from anywhere using inbuilt tools. Using Paynear ONE, business owners can accept all types of payments (credit card, debit card, net banking, wallet, UPI& EMI) instore, online and at customer’s place.
The biggest strength they have is that they one-of-a-kind payment solution provider which enables our merchants to offer their customers online & offline card acceptance, Net banking, EMI, UPI, Wallets, mini ATM with value added services like recharges, bill payments, money transfer, bus tickets and many more to offer a hassle free easy and secured merchant centric solution under one umbrella.
Paynear is self funded with funds from family and friends that helped us to stabilize and grow to this extent. They would be now looking to raise our first round for expansion in terms of product technology innovation and sales.
Team Paynear knows the in and out of the payments industry. The challenge in this industry is that if you are a start-up, you need to be heavily funded and only then you can scale up. They have built an exceptional product that can be used by any business owner to increase their sales and grow their business. When asked about the challenges and obstacles they encountered in their journey, team Paynear said that convincing the merchants to pay where the existing competitors are offering their products for free was the toughest. They believe anything free looses its value so we don’t give freebies unless it has a business sense
Today the startup has a team 300+ spread across more than 26 cities with more than 40000 merchants. Team Paynear aspires to empower more than 1 lac merchants to digitization next financial year and doing our bit to move towards a cashless India. Also, we are taking our solutions to Morocco, Bangladesh & MENA countries and we believe opportunities are in abundance provided the right solution is offer to the right merchant at the last mile.
The opportunity for us has got a new horizon & was extended at all ends with new merchants categories that came in existence like vegetable vendors, diagnostic centers, pan shops, mobile food trucks, schools, doctors, CA's. This demonetization has enabled people to realize, how important it is for them to digitize the transactions and the payment acceptance & be a part of financial inclusion.
It has observed new merchants transacting that were dormant from quite a while coming to growth out of 106 scheduled banks, only 40 banks were there into card acceptance acquiring space, thanks to demonetization now almost every bank even if it is co-operative bank they understand the urgency of deploying the devices and every bank or every financial institutions has started adapting the digital payments and start deploying devices and solutions which will enable people to start accepting digital payments.
Paynear through put across our platform increased 6 folds and they have partnered with all major district co-operative banks of Telangana & Andhra Pradesh and also partnered with Andhra bank in deploying our solution and devices.
At Paynear, they offer a diverse range of solutions beneficial for any business or trade includes Device setup, Monthly Rental / Lifetime Packages, White label offerings Etc., Our business model can be customised as per customers need.
Paynear is helping the economy in the Digital Payment Space and working on the PM's dream project of cashless India- (Paynear has contributed to make Ibrahimpur (Siddipet) the first cashless village in Telangana)
After demonetisation, digital and cashless payments have now come in focus. Getting offline merchants to use digital payments will see a drastic change in purchases and transactions. What will be more important is to see the acceptance of digital infrastructure now going up and more number of merchants and services supporting digital/mobile transactions. More than 65% merchants believe that adopting digital payment methods will boost in their sales. Paynear is also working closely with many state governments and commercial tax departments in enabling card acceptance and other digital payment acceptance in Tier II, Tier III and Tier IV markets.
They are expecting a 10x growth overall in the coming one year which we believe the growth reach will be sustained as INDIA needs not less than 40-50 Million card acceptance Vs card deployment of 1.5 Million devices.
Paynear played a key role in making towns in Telangana like Ibrahimpur & Siddipet cashless and they have partnered with multiple state governments for various other initiatives in terms of cashless transactions. Going forward they believe our responsibility is not only to develop solutions and also taking active part in presenting & educating merchants about the solutions to create maximum awareness in developing the Honourable Prime Ministers dream of cashless India.
BW Reporters
Soumya is a young writer and journalist, with bachelors in Multimedia and Mass Communication. She is an alumini of the Asian College of Journalism, and finds politics and sustainability intriguing beats to work with.
