Payworld is an aggregator of financial services, catering to the low-income market in urban India those from semi-urban and rural India

For over 50 percent of Indians living in abject poverty, digital transactions are a mirage. Majority of this population are uneducated or are still unaware of various digital facilities that could improve their lives. With most fintech companies — and even banks — catering to the urban population and the privileged section of the society, the chances for the upliftment of the poor are grim, at least in the short-term future.

A fintech company wants to reverse this trend.

“We understand that while living in a highly technological environment, we take for granted all the basic things we do using internet, such as recharging phone, buying online insurance, or money transfer. But if you look around, there are many people in India, who do not have the sufficient knowledge and learning to do it themselves,” says Praveen Dhabhai, COO of Payworld, which offers multi-modal payment solutions for different segments of the market. “We are targeting this population with our various fintech solutions.”

Also Read: Cashless payments come with security and privacy challenges from the viewpoint of consumers and businesses

Payworld, an initiative by Sugal & Damani (a company that operates government-run lotteries across India), is an aggregator of financial services, catering to the low-income group in urban India and the people in semi-urban and rural India.

The firm aggregates financial services, such as the basic banking services like money remittance, SME lending, cash-out facility, loan repayment facility and utility bill payments, in addition to other digital services such as mobile recharging, bus/train/flight ticket booking, as well as insurance from various service providers. Payworld aggregates these services into one single platform and provides them to kirana stores (small, usually family-owned shop selling groceries and other sundries) and mobile shops. Retailers can then sell any of these services to people, who walk into their shop.

“Banks continue to follow traditional methods of distribution and found the delivery daunting. So, they prefer easy large-ticket lending. The inclusion of the last man in the pyramid — that vegetable vendor or the village tailor or the cycle repair mechanic — never happened. We aim to change this,” adds Dhabhai.

“We mainly cater to the migrant labour population, who need to send money back home, as well as people who don’t know how to use a debit card/internet banking to carry out transactions online. These solutions are also intended at people who don’t know how to buy a train ticket or purchase an insurance policy online. Surprisingly, nearly 93 percent of Indians fall under this category,” he adds.

Payworld’s mobile PoS devices are used by retailers to accept payments from their customers through credit/debit card for the goods/services sold to them. This device also works as mini ATM, which means anyone can withdraw up to INR 2,000 (US$31) from any partner retail outlet by swiping their debit/ATM card. This ultraportable device can be used to enable card acceptance at the customer’s doorstep as well.

Payworld Money is an central bank RBI-approved pre-paid instrument–digital/mobile wallet issuer, which has users doing primarily domestic money remittances through the assisted mode. Also, this wallet is accepted as payment options on many websites for recharges, remittances, e-shopping and bill payments.

It has also integrated its Aadhaar-enabled payment system with retail outlets, which allows the customer to withdraw cash, deposit cash, transfer and access bank statements without having to visit the branch.

Thus far, the company has partnered with 100,000 retailer outlets in 630 districts in 23 federal states across India, and claims to be doing over 100 million transactions a year.

“The most common misconception about Payworld is that we are competing with digital wallet companies. This is in fact the complete opposite of what we are doing. We are focusing on people, who don’t have the bandwidth and knowledge to use a debit card/internet banking to fill money in his wallet and then do a transaction. We are targeting people who are otherwise difficult to reach out to,” he clarifies.

Starting with mobile recharge

When Payworld was conceived, the basic framework was developed around mobile recharging. At that time, retailers would use 10 different phones for 10 different service providers to offer mobile recharging services. Dhabhai and the team decided to bring all of these onto a single platform, thereby helping retailers save time and money.

“This became our USP. We then realised the value of aggregating services for the ease of use. So we didn’t stop at mobile recharge and we extended it to bill payments, and then kept adding new services as we moved forward,” he noted. “We developed a software that could do transactions even through a basic Nokia phone, which was more common amongst the store owners. When internet and hardware became ubiquitous, we developed a software that could be installed in these devices. Now, we have moved onto providing all sorts of financial services though a web portal and Android app.”

The company relies on a distribution model in tier II and III towns. It encourages distributors to find retailers in their area of strength and pay them commission on each transaction.

Payworld today has over 1,500 distributors across the country.

Also Read: (Exclusive) Creating Talks offers a platform for you to share your story with others, raises funding

According to Dhabhai, Payworld is growing at a 40 percent CAGR, with the FY2017-18 transaction volume standing at INR 2,300 crore (US$354).

A self-funded firm, the company is scouting for strategic partnerships and growth capital to add new services and also to take the business to the next level.

“Payworld services assume great significance against the backdrop of greater financial inclusion of the population, especially by reaching out to the unbanked for more and more cashless transactions. This will make the financial inclusion task easier for the government and users,” Dhabhai signs off.

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Tiket.com, the immediate competition of Traveloka in Indonesia, is now Go-Jek’s latest partner

Go-Jek has announced its latest collaboration, this time with Indonesia’s online travel booking startup Tiket.com to launch Go-Travel, as reported by KrAsia. This comes after announcing that its users are now armed with a chat room.

Go-Travel will allow Go-Jek’s users to book hotel rooms through Go-Jek. However, the option will only allow bookings for hotels, and not for flights or train tickets.

Go-Pay isn’t available as a payment option for Go-Travel just yet and the company said it will spend more time to integrate the experience.

Tiket.com reemerged as a travel booking frontrunner after being acquired by GDP Venture through e-commerce platform Blibli in 2017. Blibli and Tiket.com are both owned by Djarum Group, an Indonesian conglomerate.

Aside from Go-Travel, recent news also said that Go-Jek is developing a Go-Mall feature on its apps that will have JD.id and, possibly, Blibli.

Also Read: Robo-trading platform Lubna.io secures seed funding from East Ventures

Grab, Go-Jek’s main rival in the ride-hailing and all-in-one apps sector, has also announced a hotel booking feature on its platform for Singapore users, in partnership with Agoda and Booking.com.
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The innovation centre is called HLX and it aims at facilitating corporates and startups to meet

Malaysia-based conglomerate Hong Leong Group announced that it has launched a new innovation centre named HLX. The conglomerate group stated that it seeks to boost the local tech startup ecosystem by creating an intersection point for every aspect in the tech startup community, as reported by KrAsia.

HLX is designed as a Southeast Asia-common practice of private-public partnership (PPP) between Hong Leong Group and the Malaysian Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), a government agency. It will be located in the heart of Kuala Lumpur.

HLX said it plans to become the hub where corporates can connect with the startup community to exchange ideas and accelerate innovation around technologies like artificial intelligence, high-performance computing and fintech.

HLX features a 250,000 square foot facility with co-working spaces, event facilities, talent development programs, an auditorium, restaurants and a gym.

Also Read: Kickstart Ventures to manage Ayala’s US$150M Corporate VC fund in Philippines

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Can’t afford to hire a PR consultant? Left to handle media crisis all by yourself? Let this Academy piece be your guide

Landing a press coverage is often a cause for celebration; finally all of your hard work is being recognised by the media, and you just cannot imagine the opportunities it might lead to.

But unfortunately many startups found their names in the headline for all the wrong reasons.

From public spat between co-founders, sexual harassment scandals, protests, to illicit content appearing on your site, with their limited resources, early stage startups can only wish to have a strong team of public relations professionals backing them up in times of crisis.

“Data breaches, customer service debacles, recall fiascos –crises are everywhere, and countless institutions have been sunk by an unseen bombshell,” Burson-Marsteller Indonesia Market Leader Nia Pratiwi explains to e27.

“But in many cases, it isn’t the crisis itself that causes an organisation to flounder; too often it’s a organisation’s response to the crisis that causes the greatest damage,” she warns.

The public relations and communication consultancy has won an Asia Pacific Gold SABRE Award for their work in handling media crisis for Big Daddy Entertainment, a concert promoter who aimed to bring singer Lady Gaga to perform a concert in Jakarta in 2012. The concert faced rejection from religious hardliner groups, leading to the authorities’ refusal to issue permit for it.

Though the concert ended up being cancelled, with proper care, the promoter was able to gather neutral to positive media coverage during the time of crisis.

Also Read: Best and worst Indonesian startups in 2016 as picked by Santa Claus

So what are the steps that startups need to take when faced with a media crisis? Let these insights shared by Pratiwi be your guide:

Do they know it’s a crisis?

 

The first lesson that startups need to take is identifying the crisis itself. So is there any solid definition for a media crisis?

“Crisis usually comprises of several key components like high negative impact, unpredictability (results, impact, etc.) and involves potential amplifiers (like media, social media, or other stakeholders). What’s makes crisis different from emergency is that despite of the negative situation in emergency, there is a clear SOP to mitigate the issue and containment plan is relatively clear,” Pratiwi says.

In this digital era, it is almost impossible to the deny the role of social media in amplifying a crisis. In fact, Pratiwi notes that many crises began in social media platforms.

So how does one know that it is time to take action? Or is it okay to remain silent and give “no comment” during crisis?

“Action should be taken, be it solving internal issue or fixing the cause of problem, but there is no exact formula or clear distinctive factor to decide when to respond or stay silent. It will all depend on the assessment of severity of issue, reach of impact, who are stakeholders involved and what are the facts that are available,” she answers.

The steps to take –and to avoid

Due to the uncertain nature of media crisis, it is important to have flexibility and keen assessment of the situation. But generally, these are the standard operating procedures (SOPs) in handling a media crisis:

Step 1: Be honest with yourself

Organisations should never, ever put the blame as to customers’ fault or some other forms of “unforeseeable, unavoidable stroke of bad luck.”

As Pratiwi has explained, oftentimes the issues that led to the crisis are caused from within and aggravated by the organisation itself. Honesty helps leaders to get to the root of the problems and capably address them.

Also Read: ICOs are putting tech media in a bind, and that is a good thing

Step 2: Act carefully but quickly

The next step to take is crafting a strategic plan to diagnose the problem with a dedicated team. In this process, startups should consider all options, no matter how difficult and undesirable they are.

“Once a decision has been made and a plan has been developed and vetted, it must be put it into action as quickly as possible. Time is usually of the essence in such scenarios, so there can be no dillydallying or feet dragging. When crises demand same-day responses, delays can be perceived as incompetence or even indifference, both of which can exacerbate a crisis,” Pratiwi explains.

But what if there is more time available to consider the solutions? Then take it. But remember to keep on being careful and quick.

Step 3: Stay focussed

Startups need to be aware that just because they have managed to execute their action plan, it does not mean that there will not be any further challenge and setback from surfacing.

Competitors might take this opportunity to drag you even deeper to the mud; startups might even see their previous mistakes and controversies be added to the brewing storm.

“If you start to lose focus on the big picture, it might be necessary to take step back from the situation and reassess it, or even seek outside advice. But it’s important not to despair. If your plan is sound and the organisation’s intentions are good, then push through the discomfort and uncertainty,” Pratiwi encourages.

Grabbing the microphone

 

How about using your own personal Medium or Facebook page to address a crisis? This seems to be a popular route taken by many startup founders in crisis as it gives them the opportunity to tell their side of the story –and hopefully steer the narrative to their favour.

While Pratiwi does not think this is wrong, the action has to be taken with caution.

“If the startup founders’ personal social media channels have been consistently putting out positive and relevant content, then they could use blog, Facebook page or Twitter thread to address issue during crisis. However, this should be published in parallel or followed with an official statement from the company on its official channels,” she says.

“The founders’ personal message would give a more human touch that could potentially diffuse a crisis situation,” she adds.

Also Read: Another corruption scandal hits Huawei top executve in suspected bribery

In addition to making sure that one’s social media channels are “clean”, with messages that are in line with the company’s stance on the issue, founders should also be sympathetic and straightforward in addressing the issue.

And please, do not bring one’s personal political or strict religious view in the statement.

In principal, there are four things that startups need to avoid:

1. Be defensive and hostile
2. Move and react based on assumptions

“It is important to gather all the facts and verify them, but don’t wait until you have all the facts then communicate, as stakeholders would be anxious and every piece of verified fact can help to manage and contain the crisis.”

3. Under-estimate complaints or neglect reactions from stakeholders
4. Assuming that people understands you

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Image Credit: Kayla Velasquez on Unsplash

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How Real Estate Doc is pioneering efforts to revolutionise a traditional industry that is still dependent on old-fashioned tricks

In recent years, we have seen a clear shift in how different industries operate on the grassroots. Whether we are talking about finance, healthcare, entertainment, or even architecture and design, among many others—these different industries are employing the use of cutting-edge technology to improve their work.

Like these traditional industries, we see the same steady and clear shift surfacing in the real estate space. The thing about traditional operations is that the same problem tends to permeate across different workspaces: problems on heavy paper dependency, long processing time, propensity for human error, and many others.

On the backend, the status quo of the real estate industry looks bleak with current backend systems being incompatible to each other, making it difficult to sync data to the incumbent systems. Executives have to spend extra time double keying data into the backend systems from the physical documents, thus, leading to human errors.

Thankfully, there are efforts springing here and there to change the business landscape by means of digitalisation.

 

Game changers in the real estate space

 

Pioneering these efforts is Real Estate Doc—a frontend ERP-lite space and lease management platform that currently focuses on the real estate space.

Real Estate Doc (or RED) allows for digital contracts, digital signing, and digital payments, thereby eliminating the need for paper-based contracts and cuts down sales turnaround time to just 2 days (unlike the typical 2 to 3 weeks it used to take for retail leasing contracts to be completed).

From deal origination to digital contract acceptance and payments, Real Estate Doc’s modular platform serves to drive business flow and streamline work processes through digital automation. All transactions and digital contracts are also recorded in an immutable ledger of records through blockchain technology for the landlord’s easy reference and retrieval.

Also read: 4 good reasons why commercial real estate should use blockchain

More than that, Real Estate Doc promotes integration into existing backend systems, enabling a straight-through processing of data from digital contracts. This completely eliminates the need for double keying and transcription, and streamlines the long and tedious process of data collection.

One of their best features so far is their data analytics. While data analytics in traditional real estate practices are often done manually, resulting in long processing time, with Real Estate Doc, the processing of data into useful analytics is done automatically. This allows for better business decision-making for mall managers, for example, without having to go through the rigorous process of manually keying data into spreadsheets.

 

How the idea to revolutionise the real estate space came to be

 

The folks behind Real Estate Doc started their journey in the tech startup ecosystem with Averspace, a startup that operated as a direct property portal with a focus on digital documentation.

Having been involved in the Real Estate Industry Transformation Map (RE ITM) meeting with the government, they had the opportunity to meet with property developers who were interested in their digital solution.

Because of their collective experiences particularly in digital documentation, plus their in-depth understanding of the market and its specific workflows and processes, they have developed a focus on the real estate B2B space.

 

What Real Estate Doc has accomplished so far and where they are headed

 

As of today, Real Estate Doc has penetrated key spaces such as Frasers Property Singapore. Currently, their platform has gone live in eight of Frasers’ shopping malls across Singapore.

Going beyond the present, Real Estate Doc is currently in talks with other major property developers in Singapore and the rest of the Southeast Asian region. The plan to expand to the rest of the Asia Pacific region is also set for the next three years—with further developments and improvements of their product to continue providing solution to more problems within the retail industry.

Currently, the Southeast Asian real estate spectrum across the region is gaining momentum with regards to digital documentation and signing laws. Soon, we can expect widespread adoption to take place due to the substantial savings in time and money that digitalisation promises.

This gives the folks at Real Estate Doc optimistic feelings for the future of real estate. Similarly, traditional real estate spaces can look forward to better, more streamlined, and more efficient operations within the next few years.

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