FSS and Airpay to Onboard MSMEs Onto Digital Payments

FSS (Financial Software and Systems), a globally leading provider of payment products and a payment processor and Airpay, a leading omnichannel financial services platform, announced a strategic collaboration to accelerate electronic payments acceptance by micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs). The alliance is a part of the company’s global strategy to bring banks and payment aggregators onto FSS Embark – its omni-channel acquirer platform - to build an inclusive digital payment services ecosystem that efficiently caters to the MSME segment.

Access to cost-efficient digital payments is a fundamental need for businesses today. MSMEs, however, remain underserved due to the diverse and fragmented nature of the market segment as well low profitability in relation to costs of acquiring and servicing these merchants. Under the umbrella of this partnership, FSS and Airpay bring complementary strengths to improve MSME access to digital services. Airpay would be responsible for first-mile enablement – for acquiring, onboarding, technology enablement and providing ongoing support to MSMEs – whilst FSS would be responsible for last-mile single window transaction processing.

Speaking on the alliance, Krishnan Srinivasan, Global Chief Revenue Officer, FSS said: “The COVID-19 pandemic has made digital the new normal and the ability to participate in digital commerce is crucial for MSME survival and growth. We are excited to partner with Airpay for FSS Embark to bring reliable digital payment services to MSMEs. The collaboration helps us gain immediate access to an extensive MSME network and we would benefit from Airpay’s strong technology tools and merchant support network on the field, enabling us to rapidly scale our footprint.”

Speaking on the partnership, Kunal Jhunjhunwala CEO, Airpay, said: “MSMEs are at the heart of India’s economy, and are the hardest hit by the pandemic, as they lack, technology and tools that will help them sell in the digital marketplace. Our partnership with FSS helps make the entire transaction processing more reliable and efficient. It would enable us to expand services to a large base of merchants by offering them a range of innovative digital payment acceptance services -- online, instore and mobile -- to participate and compete in a digital-first economy.”

MSMEs represent 90 per cent of businesses in India and play a crucial role in India’s economy --contributing 30 per cent to the county’s total GDP and employing an approximate 28 per cent of the country’s workforce. A B2B omni-channel acquiring service, FSS Embark partners with banks and merchant aggregators and helps them leverage its reliable, and scalable technology platform to transform the economics of servicing MSMEs. 

Kalaari Capital Invests Rs 24 Cr in Enterprise Payment Solutions Provider Airpay

Mumbai based payment services startup, Airpay, has raised Rs 24 crore as part of a Series A round, led by Kalaari Capital and existing investors Rakesh Jhunjhunwala & Rajesh Jhunjhunwala.

Airpay was founded by Amit Kapoor, Kunal Jhunjhunwala and Rohan Deshpande, experienced technology, operations and marketing professionals. The founders witnessed first hand, various payment related hurdles faced by medium & large enterprises and decided to come together to solve a complex problem.

Presently, Airpay is India’s only omnichannel payments company providing enterprise software as a service (SaaS) solution to its clients, to accept inbound payments from consumers (C2B) and process outbound payments to pay vendors (B2B).

Speaking on the investment, Rajesh Raju, MD, Kalaari Capital said, “The sheer complexity of instruments and channels for payments in India demands innovative one-stop solutions such as those offered by Airpay. We are very excited to partner with them, as they are well positioned to capitalise on India’s reformed push towards a cashless economy.”

The platform allows enterprises to accept payments from their clients across a plethora of touch points - web, mobile, call centre, IVR, email, SMS and face-to-face - via 100+ financial instruments. Airpay’s unique open architecture integrates seamlessly into the client’s ecosystem, offering real time visibility of payment collection and advanced analytics and reporting of user payment data.

Also, with the current changing economic scenario in the country, cashless payments hold an unprecedented growth opportunity in India. The Government of India`s increased push to promote digital transactions by initiatives such as Demonetization, UPI, BHIM and GST have further made the payments space ripe for disruption. A BCG report published in July 2016 (before Demonetization) estimates digital and card based payments to be a $650B+ opportunity by 2020.

Rakesh Jhunjhunwala noted that “It is heartening to note that Airpay has scaled its throughput 14x over the last year. We welcome Kalaari Capital as a visionary investor who can add significant value to Airpay.”

The company plans to further invest into technology and build a strong sales, distribution and support infrastructure to rapidly expand its enterprise customer base.

Amit Kapoor, Co Founder said, “We are thankful to Kalaari, for entrusting us and coming onboard the Airpay journey. Both Kalaari and our existing investors, come with diverse experiences and philosophies which will help us build an organization of repute. We also want to take this opportunity to thank all our clients, merchants, financial institutions, partners & above all our team for believing in us all these initial years.”