Ezetap launches 'Zero Contact Payments for Delivery’ in India, Ensures Safe Home Deliveries

Ezetap, India’s leading payment solutions company, has launched an array of solutions under the umbrella of Zero Contact Payments for Delivery, focussing especially on the delivery segment, which is an integral part for business continuity across different sectors such as supermarkets, e-commerce, logistics, pharmacy, restaurants, etc. The use cases such as NFC Card Payments, QR code payments, and SMS Payment Links will ensure safe and contactless deliveries for online shoppers and delivery agents as well.

To curb the spread of COVID-19, RBI and NPCI have been encouraging the adoption of digital payments. While cash payments result in close proximity, customers and delivery agents are hesitant to exchange notes, as the virus can remain on surfaces including currency notes for a few hours. Businesses of all sizes are entering the delivery segment as delivery agents and customers are both concerned about safety. This has resulted in increased awareness and a boom for contactless deliveries, as it is rapidly becoming the new norm and strategy for business expansion and continuity across different sectors.

Here are the new Zero Contact payment features by Ezetap, with enhanced customer experience, that ensures safety across multiple touch-points during a home delivery.

• NFC Card Payments: As soon as the delivery agent reaches the doorstep one can pay via NFC credit or debit card with a single tap on the PoS device.
• Dynamic QR Codes: The delivery agent uses his mobile or POS device and generates a QR code containing the order information and payment details and displays it to the customer. This allows the customer to scan the QR using any UPI app.
• Static QR Codes: In this use case, the agent carries a predesignated QR code assigned specially for him. The customer can then scan this QR code to make the payment, again maintaining a gap of 6 ft.
• SMS Pay Link: To ensure safety, many co-operative housing societies have banned the entry of delivery agents. In such a situation, a delivery agent can share an SMS Pay link to the customer, encouraging payments via UPI, credit/debit or net banking; which the customer can facilitate from the convenience of their homes. The delivery agent can track the progress of the customer’s payment journey, receive the payment, and leave the package at the main gate without worry / confidently.
• Bulk SMS: Ezetap has also introduced a bulk SMS feature which can be sent to all customers on the morning of the delivery.

Commenting on the Zero Contact Payments announcement, Byas Nambisan—CEO at Ezetap, said, “Social distancing amid COVID-19 has fuelled a surge in the use of contactless payments. Ezetap's ‘Zero Contact Payments for Delivery’ will allow customers to pay for goods or services digitally, instead of using cash. While Ezetap has been the leader in the delivery segment in India, this solution solves the problems that Covid-19 and the lockdown have created for companies that accept payment via cash on delivery. Offering multiple payment options on a single device makes the entire process smooth and low touch. Apart from simplifying omnichannel payment acceptance, it further ensures a customized payment experience based on different business needs.”

Since the inception of the company in 2011, Ezetap has been serving India’s leading players in the delivery segment and has been fundamentally changing how hundreds of millions of people pay for goods and services on a daily basis—by enabling businesses to accept any type of payment via any type of digital instrument (cards, wallets, apps) through a single interface. Ezetap platform has end-to-end capabilities to handle digital payment processing right from switching to reconciliation, using its own hardware and software.

Ezetap Introduces Free App for Spot Fine Collection, for Govt Organisations across India

Ezetap, India’s leading payment solutions company, has launched a free app for spot fine collection, for government organisations across India. This digital payments app allows government bodies, especially municipal corporations, to accept payments from citizens without the need for any payment device. Digital payment modes like UPI and Bharat QR which are a QR code based payment mode, SMS Pay which is an SMS link based payment mode as well as recording cash, etc. are possible through the app.

While hygiene and safety is the responsibility of every citizen, there have been instances when some ignorant citizens are seen without masks, or spitting and urinating at public places, littering their surroundings with garbage, etc. Keeping a close watch on the number of rules and regulations that are being followed in a highly populated country like India has been a challenge for government organisations and municipal corporations across the country. Cash handling, manual reconciliation, manual recording of challans, tracking penalty evasions and an overall lack of transparency due to non-digitised systems have further added to inefficiencies while collecting spot fine collection from offenders.

Giving a further boost to contactless payments in this post-COVID-19 era, the newly launched digital payments app for spot fine allows government bodies/municipal corporations to accept payments from citizens, in a hassle-free manner. Government bodies can also add up to 10 offenses, which can be customized as per their needs. They can also instantly generate an invoice/paperless receipt for the same. This can also be printed to generate a physical challan slip.

Commenting on the launch of this user-friendly app, Bhaskar Chatterjee—Head of Products at Ezetap, said, “Government bodies have been facing major challenges such as recording challans, penalty tracking, etc. The one-stop solution for this is the digitisation of the system. Ezetap’s new spot fine app is the culmination of our strong belief in India’s digital growth story and aims to offer a seamless spot fine collection experience for government officials. The app is designed to match the operational needs of government organisations across the country.”

The standard version of the app which can be downloaded from the Google Playstore is available for free and mainly focuses on organisations collecting spot fines. There is also a premium version of this app which comes with additional features that can be customised to the organisation’s needs, and at a one-time cost. Hospet MC, Hubli Dharwad MC and Bellary MC are some of the Municipal Corporation bodies that have been onboarded as part of this pro bono program. In the recent past, the integrated paid version of the Ezetap platform has gained popularity with a number of MCs in the country like BBMP (Bangalore), BMC (Bhopal), etc.



About Ezetap

At Ezetap, veterans from payments, hardware, cloud and SaaS industries have joined hands for the sole purpose of ushering in a new era of a frictionless digital payment ecosystem in India. Ezetap has deployed over 2,60,000 smart service points on its platform with customers ranging from brick-and-mortar retailers, e-commerce players, leading enterprises, and financial inclusion organisations. Ezetap processes over US$3.1 billion annually and has been ranked thrice in-a-row by CNBC in their Global Top 50 Disruptor List.

Having raised $51 million in funding, investors include Social Capital, the Silicon Valley firm led by former Facebook executive Chamath Palihapitiya, Helion Advisors, American Express, Li Ka-Shing’s Horizons Ventures, JS Capital (Jonathan Soros) and Prime Venture Partners.

Ezetap Co-founder Abhijit Bose is Now Head of WhatsApp India

Abhijit Bose, co-founder and CEO of electronic payment device firm Ezetap, has been appointment as India Head of Facebook-owned WhatsApp. Bose is now leaving Ezetap an will join WhatsApp in early next year to head WhatsApp operations in India.

After leaving his position at Ezetap, Bose will build WhatsApp's first full country team outside of the US and will be based in Gurgaon. He and his team will focus on helping businesses, both large and small connect with their customers.

Speaking on the appointment, Matt Idema, Chief Operating Officer of WhatsApp, said, “WhatsApp is deeply committed to India and we are excited to keep building products that help people connect and support India's fast-growing digital economy. As a successful entrepreneur himself, Abhijit knows what it takes to build meaningful partnerships that can serve businesses across India,”

Commenting on his new role, Abhijit Bose, who's a graduate of Harvard Business School and Cornell University, said, “WhatsApp is special and can be a major partner for financial inclusion and economic growth in India. It's not only how so many families stay in touch, but increasingly it's how businesses are engaging with their customers. WhatsApp can positively impact the lives of hundreds of millions of Indians, allowing them to actively engage and benefit from the new digital economy".

Earlier this year, WhatsApp released the WhatsApp Business app for small business owners and the WhatsApp Business API to serve larger businesses that engage with customers at scale. Today there are over one million users of these WhatsApp business products in India.

WhatsApp is building a dedicated team for India operation as result of regulation that Indian government has enforced in mid of this year. WhatsApp was expected to expand its payment service nationally as soon as June this year but got delayed over and over again due to several reasons, first for having office and team in India and then to explain government more about data localization.

WhatsApp currently has one corporate entity in India, by the name of WhatsApp Application Services Limited, and is registered in Hyderabad with Rakesh Rewari, formerly with Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI), and its general counsel Anne Hoge Milken, as the entity’s directors.

[Top Image of Abhijit Bose is taken from CNBC.com]

Payments Firm Ezetap Raises $16M Led by Jonathan Soros Owned JS Capital

Ezetap, the universal mobile payments provider leading the fintech revolution in India, today announced it has secured $16 million in new funding. The largest investors of this round of funding is JS Capital Management, the investment fund of Jonathan Soros. Existing investors Social Capital and Li Ka-Shing’s Horizons Ventures not only participated, but increased their stake in the company as part of this round. As part of this round, Salil Seshadri, CIO at JS Capital Management, will join the Board. Ezetap will use the financing to continue innovating and expanding its payments platform – first of its kind that lets any business accept any form of payment – as well as grow its sales and operations across India and abroad.

Founded by Silicon Valley veterans in 2011, Ezetap was one of the pioneers in the mobile point of sale (POS) market, and the first company to focus on integrating that payment experience into other software applications and systems used by merchants to run their businesses. While most payment companies today still make money from transaction fees, Ezetap was one of the first companies to move payments to a pure software-as-a-service business model. Ezetap created India’s first universal payments platform in 2015, allowing merchants to accept any digital transaction including physical cards, online payments, mobile wallets, or one-click payments via India’s new UPI system that allows any device or interface to use biometric data, SMS, or digital QR codes.

“India is on the brink of a massive surge in consumer consumption, but not until the underlying payments infrastructure is securely in place,” said Chamath Palihapitiya, founder and CEO of Social Capital. “Ezetap is in an incredible position as the leading platform for Indian merchants, with deep IP and no obvious US proxy – it’s like a combination of Stripe, AWS and Android, built for the complexities of the Indian market. This team has balanced patience and ambition as they’ve solved a truly hard problem, and now they’re starting to really scale and claim Ezetap's place as one of the most important emerging technology platforms in India.”

The rapid ascent of Ezetap comes at a time of tectonic shifts in the way legacy industries operate, thanks to the rise of global software platforms running on mobile internet. Uber and Airbnb revolutionized transportation and hospitality in the United States, and Alibaba transformed commerce in China. Now, Ezetap is revolutionizing fintech, starting in India. The inflection point was when Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced his unprecedented demonetization initiative last November, which fast-tracked consumer adoption of digital payments and pushed all government agencies and merchants to transact digitally.

As a result, Ezetap has seen massive growth over the past year, including the following milestones:

· Enabling digital payments for more than 200,000 merchants and users across India. In addition to many small businesses, some of India’s largest corporations and government agencies are integrating their software systems with Ezetap.

· Processing $135 million in transactions monthly — 8x growth over the last 18 months — and is on track to increase transaction volume by another 3x in the next 18 months

· Annual GTC run rate of $1.45 billion across all transaction types, with $1.23 billion for cards alone

· More than 15 million consumers have transacted on Ezetap’s platform. 8.5 million consumers transacted on Ezetap for the first time in 2016 alone

· Acquired FortunePay to enhance its payment processing infrastructure for banks. A merchant or developer can now begin accepting any form of payment via Ezetap within 24 hours.

“We are fortunate to not only have investment but strategic insight from top tier investors who have backed some of the best businesses across the globe. India is at least five years ahead of the US in terms of fintech innovation, and Ezetap is at the forefront, thanks to the support and guidance of our investors,” said Ezetap co-founder and CEO Abhijit Bose. “It is a perfect storm. We have a society and economy that needed — and was ready — for digital adoption, mobile Internet infrastructure that finally allows us to reach every citizen, a once-in-a-lifetime government policy, coupled with a scrappy fintech ecosystem in which the winners will have built scalable, difficult-to-replicate businesses in a low margin market. The fintech companies that come out of India in the next few years will help redefine business models and how people transact globally.”

“We have been watching what’s been going on in India fintech for several years, and have been impressed by the number of technical, business, and operational challenges that Ezetap has solved enroute to creating the model for how we believe payments will be handled in the future,” said Jonathan Soros, founder and CEO of JS Capital Management. “Ezetap is democratizing payments in a country that is going digital at an unprecedented rate, but the impact of that transformation will be felt globally.”

Image: Ezetap co-founder and CEO Abhijit Bose

Bangalore based Ezetap raises funds from American Express

Bangalore-based payment device maker Ezetap Mobile Solutions has raised undisclosed amount of funding from American Express to expand its services across Asia and Africa. Ezetap said that the funding investment is minor.

Founded in 2011, Ezetap is mobile point-of-sale provider which is actually combination of a device that reads credit and debit cards and an smartphone app, the device can be mounted on audio jack of any smartphone with Android OS 2.2 or higher.

Till date Ezetap has raised some $12 million in funding. Just a month back, Ezetap received venture funding of $8 million i.e. around Rs 49.8 crore in a Series B funding from a consortium of investors led by venture fund Helion Venture Partners.

Ezetap has also managed to get some prominent ecommerce portal of India in its clientele for cash-on-delivery payments and the clients includes Myntra.com, BookmyShow, RedBus.in and BigBasket.com. Delivery agents pf these e-commerce companies are empowered with the Ezetap device and delivery application to accept and swipe the cards of customers on mobile phones.

Ezetap is certified secure by the leading banks in India and abroad and is authorized for visa, mastercard and American Express cards.

As per reports Ezetap has deployed 12,000 devices across South East Asia and Africa and will use the funds to increase growth in these markets. It aims to take the total number of devices over 100K by next year.

Ezetap is Mobile startup incubated at Bangalore-based AngelPrime and till date has received funding from PayPal's Peter Thiel and enterprise social network company Yammer cofounder David Sacks as well as billionaire Nicolas Berggruen's private equity fund Berggruen Holdings.