BharatPe's PoS business grows to $4 bn annualised transaction value

Fintech firm says it has ramped up the reach of this business by 25x to over 250 cities in the past 12 months

Fintech firm BharatPe said that it has ramped up the reach of its PoS (point of sale) business (BharatSwipe) by 25x to over 250 cities in the past 12 months. Since the launch of its POS business in the second half of 2020, the company has deployed more than 1.25 lakh BharatSwipe machines across offline shops. Achieving this feat in a short span of close to one-and-a-half years, BharatPe said it has done the fastest-ever scale-up on POS business in India.

BharatPe, which is now the No. 3 private PoS player in India, also said that the company has witnessed 200 per cent growth in the annualized transaction value from its PoS business, over the past 12 months. The segment now contributes about 25 per cent to the overall payments Transaction Processed Value (TPV) of the company. This growth can be attributed to the expansion of the company’s PoS business in non-metro cities, with more than 50 per cent of BharatSwipe machines being deployed in tier-2 and tier-3 towns and cities since 2021. BharatSwipe has been universally adopted by small merchants and retailers across categories including grocery, food & beverage, electronics and durables, among others.

“BharatSwipe has been the biggest growth story in India’s POS industry- from making a humble beginning with 10 cities in the middle of Covid in 2020, to processing $4 billion payments annually today,” said Suhail Sameer, CEO, BharatPe. “Over the course of last year, we have witnessed multi-fold growth in our POS business, led by our aggressive expansion plans in tier-2, 3 and 4 towns and cities.”

The firm realized that a large number of merchants in the smaller cities have not used a POS machine ever, owing to the traditional high rentals associated with POS and hence, took it as an opportunity to push our zero-rental POS machines.

“We were able to take POS to several small merchants in last-mile areas with low digital penetration like Alappuzha, Azamgarh and Chalisgaon. In fact, over 60 per cent of our merchants are first time POS users,” said Sameer.

The transition to digital payments offers a range of benefits for the merchants and the economy at large- including customer delight in the times of pandemic, better record of transactions and most importantly, access to credit. “The addition of POS enables us to further assess the financial strength of a merchant from his daily transactions and thus, facilitate business loans as per the merchant’s eligibility, in partnership with NBFCs,” said Sameer.

BharatSwipe is India’s first zero-rental card acceptance machine that offers merchants the option for zero transaction fees. Launched in the middle of Covid in 2020, BharatSwipe received a great response. With BharatSwipe, merchants can also generate physical receipts for both QR transactions done on BharatPe UPI QR.

In August last year, BharatPe announced a strategic partnership with Axis Bank. As a part of the association, Axis Bank became the acquiring bank for BharatPe’s point of sale (POS) business, BharatSwipe, and enables the acceptance of credit and debit cards for merchants associated with BharatPe.  The firm said it will continue to ramp up strategic partnerships with banks, financial institutions and brands with the objective of enhancing the customer experience on its POS devices. The company targets to reach $ 30 billion TPV on payments through both QR and Swipe by March 2023.