Emerging Tech in Payment Platforms: Noopur Chaturvedi, PayU India

In times of quarantine because of Corona Virus, online payment gateways are of prime importance to

the SMBs including the Channel community. Noopur Chaturvedi, Country Head, SMB Businesses, PayU India,  discusses

the usage of Emerging technologies in her platform and how it helps the SMBs.

What kind of Emerging Tech are you using and how is this benefiting SMB businesses? 

We use the latest technologies in AI, ML, predictive analytics and big data to help merchants collect payments seamlessly while also assisting them in supporting new business models. AI and ML usage are deeply embedded in our service to our merchants and consumers. Our consumer experience of industry leads payment success rates on our gateway because of a reinforcement-learning based dynamic routing algorithm. We use AI for document processing and risk assessment for merchants, bringing down end-to-end onboarding time to just one day, where the industry average is 10-15 days. With model-based risk-assessment of a merchant, we pre-approve merchant settlement amount up to a certain threshold, enabling real-time settlement of dues. Our payment authentication (Wibmo) mechanism is based on a risk prediction model, which not only helps prevent fraud, but we are enhancing it to enable one-click-checkout without asking for an OTP for non-risky consumers.

We use machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms to power feature like PayU Assist which achieved a 70% reduction in weekly merchant queries and a 95% reduction in retail buyer queries, since its launch last year.

 What’s the growth profile that you have achieved with the use of Emerging Tech in SMB business? Can you give some figures? 

We service an increasingly growing number of merchants. PayU has about 3 lakh+ merchants; our new SMB merchant acquisition has been growing steadily. PayU’s mission is to support start-ups and small businesses which are going online for the first time, to become the payment gateway of choice for these segments of merchants. The SMB business grew in GMV by 60% from FY19 to FY20.

PayU Assist, an app launched last year, achieved a remarkable 70% reduction in weekly merchant queries and 95% reduction in retail buyer queries, post its launch. It reduced query resolution time from 25 hours to 2 hours and merchant queries fell from 2300 to 650 a week.

What are the challenges in using Emerging Tech in fintech platforms? 

We strive to provide SMBs easy access to new payment solutions while also ensuring that the transactions are highly safe and secure. Therefore, for all new technologies that we launch, they have to be merchant and consumer-friendly and yet be the most secure platform/feature for them to use.

Our focus is on three things – creating an improved merchant experience, improved customer experience and ensuring the safety of the transaction for both genuine merchants and customers.

 What are the marketing strategies of your organisation in its endeavour to reach the SMBs?   

We actively seek partner with key players in the eco-system to not only acquire but enable very contextual solutions for merchants. We have partnered with leading ERP players like Logic and Zoho and also integrated with most platforms like Shopify and Shopmatic that enable a merchant to set up E-commerce stores.  This enables us to provide payment solutions to a wide segment of merchants.

At the same time, our marketing focus has been on events and content creation that is relevant for small businesses. We continue to build engaging platforms such as offline events, mentor sessions, investor meets, online webinars, and build an online training academy for businesses. We have a strong association with banks to provide solutions to a large segment of SMBs. We participate in key SMB events where we educate SMBs about the ease of adopting payments online.