The Hindu Business Line : PayMate plans to tie up with offline retailers

New facility
Likely to reduce transaction time for retailers
Will helps retailers to enter customer's mobile phone number
Will ensure that the customer is not required to reveal his PIN in public

Chennai , Jan. 5

After tying up online merchants such as rediff.com, cleartrip.com and many others, mobile payment solutions provider PayMate India has plans to tie up with offline merchants, especially in the retail industry.

According to Mr Ajay Adiseshann, founder and Managing Director, PayMate India, the company is launching a special service application for retailers. "We are offering branded point of sale devices with inbuilt interactive voice response systems (IVR)," he said.

So far PayMate has used only SMS to initiate and confirm payments. For instance, to make an online purchase, a user would initiate the transaction by providing his mobile phone number at the online portal. PayMate would then send him an SMS asking to confirm payment. By keying in a PayMate provided personal identification number (PIN) on his mobile phone, the user would be able to confirm payment.

The new IVR device is expected to reduce the transaction time for retailers and is modelled on the credit card, said Mr Adiseshann.

A retailer can use the IVR device to enter the customer's mobile phone number. PayMate would then send that customer the SMS for confirmation of purchase. This ensures that the customer is not required to reveal his PIN in public.

PayMate has invested about Rs 1.5 crore in 1,000 IVR devices so far and plans to invest about Rs 10 crore in technology related infrastructure including more IVR devices in the coming years, said Mr Adiseshann.

It recently tied up with companies such as Future Bazaar (part of the Pantaloon Retail family of outlets), CRS Health, Gold Cabs (a cab service in Mumbai) and Planet M for this facility.

For small retail outlets that cannot afford an IVR device, the company has provided connectivity to PayMate servers using existing Internet or mobile handsets, Mr Adiseshann told Business Line.

The company also plans to step up its marketing activity among the public. As of now a few thousand people have used the mobile payment facility, said Mr Adiseshann.

PayMate's solution is available on any mobile phone connection and is agnostic to banks and merchants. At present, the company is connected to portals and about 14 banks through multi operator short codes such as 8888. The company plans to set up its own four digit short code soon, he said.

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