Having struck the largest fintech deal in the country with the acquisition of BillDesk, PayU India is now looking to explore small-ticket financial offerings and embedded finance for gig workers.

The company is currently piloting credit offerings for the SMB segment, Anirban Mukherjee, CEO, PayU India, said.

“Our goal is to become one of the leading payment companies by innovating digital credit and payments through partnerships and building together a full ecosystem of various financial services. On the digital credit front, we have already bought PaySense and merged it with LazyPay. We are at present experimenting with SMB credit and revolving credit. The demand is massive, and the segment is underserved,” Mukherjee told BusinessLine.

Strategic invetments

In its attempt to become a full services fintech player, PayU has been regularly making strategic investments in various fintech start-ups operating in different segments including DotPe, Fisdom and Indiagold. Mukherjee added that the company will continue to make similar investments, without disclosing specific capabilities he will be on the lookout for.

He believes that using LazyPay-based systems, consumers with little credit history will pave the way that PayU will take in the future. “We were the pioneers in ‘buy now, pay later’ segment. We are trying to do many things. Technological enhancements enable us to offer simple and lower ticket size products at various price points. We offer merchants overnight lending. We will also be exploring embedded finance for gig workers,” he said.

With embedded finance, unbanked population will get access to payment and lending products through the company’s platforms without needing to have or attach bank accounts.

Market leadership

BillDesk’s acquisition has boosted PayU’s journey in many ways. While PayU has been powering transactions for several internet economy companies, BillDesk has been a clear market leader in payment technologies space enabling over 50 per cent of the billing transactions in the country. The company also has been a key service provider to the BFSI sector and government organisations.

“This deal makes PayU one of the leading companies for digital payments. It gives us massive scale, and it will enable us to process 4 billion transactions together. It also creates scope for much more innovations and at that kind of scale, it will be very significant,” Mukherjee said.

The BillDesk team and founders will continue to be a part of the business even as PayU takes charge.

“India accounts for more than 50 per cent of our business and we are leaders in seven markets out of the 20 we operate in. BillDesk’s products have global applicability and with PayU partnership, we can take those innovations and platforms global,” he added.

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