We do much more than just enable payments: PayNearby CEO Anand K Bajaj

PayNearby partners with neighbourhood retail stores and empowers them with the tools to provide digital and financial services to local communities over the last mile. It has, in effect, reimagined the business correspondent model to hawk a host of financial services untouched by legacy regulated entities. ANAND KUMAR BAJAJ, the firm’s founder, managing director and chief executive officer, spoke to Raghu Mohan. Edited excerpts:

Your firm started off as a payments company, but is now into financial retailing and the e-commerce space by leveraging the kirana network. How would you classify PayNearby as a firm?

Leveraging the power of our tech-backed distribution-as-a-service (DaaS), we digitise, sachetise and universalise products and services for last-mile consumption. We employ a pizza-bread strategy, where we have laid the base of a pizza-bread with basic banking facilities of cash deposit, withdrawal and remittance across 20,000-plus postal codes in the country.

On top of that, we are now layering essential toppings of digital commerce, micro-insurance, micro-lending, OTT, e-education, pharmacy and many more. Our simple and affordable plug-and-play solutions with many service providers are helping us serve a considerable segment.

Are you saying that the firm is a network of networks? And, if so, how do you see the emerging collaborations between regulated entities?

It would rather be fair to say that we are a DaaS network. We aim to simplify high-end technology for consumption at the last mile so that there’s democratisation of services, and the advantages of the modern world are available to the masses.

With the aid of API and a plug-and-play technology framework, the DaaS model allows enterprises to make their services available to Bharat via local retailers across the country. We actively collaborate and seek guidance from regulated entities that ensure that our services comply with the highest level of protocols.

Is it possible for deployers of point-of-sale (PoS) machines to do much the same as PayNearby?

In today’s world, access to technology is readily available to everybody. Anyone can do what we are doing. But the question is: what’s their focus, and how willing are they to evolve? Firms that were solely focused on the PoS business in urban centres have suffered due to the low or nil MDR (merchant discount rate) announced by the government. And with UPI, their businesses have been further affected. So now, their focus is probably to make their existing businesses viable first, before entering a territory like ours.

Even if they want to enter, they will have to start from scratch -- right from acquiring dealers, tooling, training and creating the trust framework with them, to creating the service and technology framework along with partnerships, all of which we have been continually refining over the past six years.

Are we headed for a situation where the lines between manufacturing a product or service and its distribution is going to be increasingly blurred, as far as the customer is concerned?

If we consider the latest advances in the ONDC (open network for digital commerce), owing to its open architecture, consumers have come closer to the supply side and the manufacturer. From the customer’s perspective, there’s a chance that the lines may appear to have blurred between distributors, manufacturers, and suppliers. But, a strong distribution network is still very much required. It’s an integral part of the consumption chain. Thanks to a distribution network like ours, now one can visit a local kirana shop and buy an OTT recharge, or insurance, along with a kilo of potatoes or pulses.

Again, all our retailers double up as ATM outlets, through the micro-ATMs we have placed with them. These retailers have been given a terminal to swipe cards and dispense cash. So, we have low cost, higher optimisation, and absolute viability in contrast to ATMs (legacy). We are also part of the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) sand-box for taking inward remittances on the same network. We have been able to convince the RBI that beyond the 42,000 cash-out points of Western Union, we can provide access to consumers in vast and deep markets across the country, allowing them to withdraw money at any time, any quantum they want, from any outlet they wish.

How do you see the plot unfolding, going forward?

We want to make India a more inclusive and empowered nation. Our latest product offering is a savings and current bank account opening, in association with Axis Bank, for both last-mile SMEs (small and medium enterprises) and customers, which is aligned with our mission. Enabled by Aadhaar-led authentication, the opening of these bank accounts at a local store ensures easy access to an active bank account for every small business and household in Bharat.

This product, designed to inculcate savings behaviour among the masses, is simplifying banking for all in remote areas and bringing Bharat to the formal financial fold at an accelerated pace. We are aiming to raise $40 million in funding, which will help us expand our lending facility and mass insurance distribution capability, besides driving massive campaigns to upscale our existing network, among other things. We are in the process of raising funds for massive further expansion, to bring in more products, more tech, and more visibility.