Contactless transactions, face and touch recognition and behavioural analytics will become part of daily routine: Sudhir Sehgal, PayU India

As a digital payment gateway, PayU India has a bird’s view of online payments across different businesses and sectors. In an interview with Express Computer, Sudhir Sehgal, Country Head, Enterprise Business, PayU India, discusses how his firm has ensured business continuity in these trying times.

How has PayU ensured business continuity of operations in these times?
A leader in the digital payments landscape and a growth-focused company, PayU has implemented a robust business continuity plan to ensure that work continues on course for our merchants, employees, and vendors. PayU has the one of the largest merchant base in the country today. In order to service them seamlessly, the company is deploying platforms like Salesforce, C-Zentrix and OneDirect. Additionally, with in-house products such as PayU Biz Merchant Panel and Citrus Merchant Panel, PayU has a wide range of support tools for query resolution. PayU Assist, an automated customer service experience app, addresses merchant queries in real time.

When it comes to our own organizational processes, PayU has Business Continuity and Security policies designed to adhere to remote working culture principles and regular rehearsals on these principles make us well-equipped to manage working from home. Our entire workforce has access to state-of-the-art video calls, messaging, collaboration and document sharing tools for smooth functioning of operations.

What are the key trends you have witnessed across the online payments space across different businesses and sectors? Are there any key sectors which stand out?
A Black swan event like the COVID 19 pandemic has caused seismic shifts in the Payments ecosystem. While there is a general downturn worldwide, in India digital payments have seen an uptake owing to their contactless nature and the fact that they are safe, secure and more convenient than physical cash. PayU is diversified across sectors and we have seen increasing volumes in sectors such as groceries, education, OTT, NGOs, telecom, cable networks and ISP providers. Naturally, sectors such as travel aggregators, hospitality and airlines have seen a downturn. With lockdown in effect and the COVID-19 pandemic impacting socio-economic fabric of the country, we anticipate higher traction in essentials such as groceries, and in segments that are more utilitarian by nature, such as grooming products.

What are the key trends you foresee with respect to your enterprise business, which consists of large volume merchants?
There are several trends shaping the ecosystem – both from a business and technology point of view. Once services fully normalize, the pent up demand for white and brown consumer goods, electronics, and other items through e-commerce will unfold-some of this we are already witnessing. This in turn will increase digital payments transactions as they are a swift and secure option for both consumers and merchants. Once the lockdown is fully lifted, a lot of e-commerce companies might opt for ‘flash sales’, to clear old inventory and meet surge in demand.

As consumers’ discretionary spending lowers, brands will have to innovate to acquire and retain customers. We expect that companies working with payment gateways to offer affordability through financing solutions at the point of sale will have a distinct advantage, as this will encourage larger spends. Gateways will have to work in tandem with brands to improve the customer experience and stickiness through innovations such as equipping servicing teams with 100% contactless alternatives to Cash on delivery like ePoS or faster, more efficient customer query resolution.

We will see mass behavioural changes as consumers increasingly adopt digital payments because of their contactless nature and convenience. As a result, core payments will become hygiene factors and companies will focus on providing better, faster and more effortless payment experiences. Advanced payment form factors like contactless transactions, biometric authentication, face & touch recognition and behavioural analytics will become part of daily routine to make experiences seamless with greater security.

How has PayU adapted to the needs of the enterprise? What are some of the significant initiatives taken by your firm?
Every crisis is also an opportunity, and fintech firms will become leaner and stronger because of COVID-19. A lot of focus will be on partnering with merchants for business and technology, to help them overcome the challenges in the next few months. We expect that firms will face shortage of working capital and will experience difficulties in cash flow. They will require support from strategic partners like PayU and we are building innovative merchant cash advance solutions. As part of some future initiatives on the horizon, we are planning to build EMI products at point of sale for merchants, to help spur consumer spends and sales as typically consumers tend to spend more when they purchase in instalments.

PayU is well-equipped with industry leading technology and products to meet the myriad needs of enterprise merchants. Over the years, PayU has built the most reliable and robust payment platform which scales seamlessly with increase in volumes. PayU’s intelligent routing algorithm chooses the most optimised route to perform a given transaction and keeps improving by using historical as well as real-time data.

PayU focuses on user experience to a greater degree and reduces steps or hops in transaction processing by offering innovative features like Secure Vault, Auto OTP read, Zero Redirection, Light weight mobile-optimised pages. Predictive analytics and big data is key to gleaning valuable insights and improve processes. Harnessing these techniques, PayU provides merchants with purchase information, customer buying insights, sales reports and inventory forecasts.

With acquisition of Wibmo last year, PayU is now well-positioned to drive higher success rates and frictionless payments experience. The combined entity can now provide an end-to-end solution through the entire transaction process – from the initiation of the payment process to the authentication and settlement of the payment, delivering a powerful, secure digital payment ecosystem for seamless payment experience and industry-leading transaction success rates in online and mobile payments. The synergy of PayU’s strong merchant network and Wibmo’s leadership in digital transaction security solutions has created a robust digital payment ecosystem which is capable of harmonizing transaction processing on both issuing and acquiring side.