Vikas Garg, The Visionary Behind Paytail’s Success in the Offline Retail Checkout EMI Market
Despite the prevalence of online shopping, most Indians still favour doing their shopping at their neighborhood store where they can physically inspect and try the item before making a purchase. According to a recent survey, 45% of consumers preferred shopping for things offline rather than online. These customers favour offline establishments that offer digital and contactless payments as well as credit services like Buy Now Pay Later, but they also anticipate benefits similar to those provided by online retail stores.
One such fintech is Paytail, which enables offline shops to meet the needs of their younger clients and cater to their evolving needs. Customers have more incentives to spend at offline retail establishments and never go home empty-handed thanks to Paytail, which offers fast paperless 0% EMIs to customers and instantly provides digital funding to millions of Indian businesses.
We sat down with Vikas Garg, co-founder and CEO of Paytail, to find out more about the company’s development, goals, and outlook on the market.
Tell us about your company? Are you funded?
Paytail is a rising fintech company enabling instant digital finance and easy EMIs across millions of merchants across the country. The company’s vision is to help consumers take their favourite products home with convenience and affordability. Paytail aims to cross INR 2000+ crores by the first half of 2023. It currently has 85,000+ retailers registered on its platform, all of which were onboarded through 45+ partner financial institutions comprising large multinational and Indian brands. In the next 3 years, Paytail is gearing up to become the largest affordability service provider for offline stores beyond Tier 1 & 2 cities and is looking to enter underserved states in the Southern and Eastern parts of India.
What is your background? When did you think of becoming an entrepreneur?
I had the ambition to become an entrepreneur from a young age and decided to pursue it seriously after gaining industry experience. I come from a business family, which instilled in me a keen business sense from a young age. After completing my MBA from Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management in 2010, I entered the world of corporate banking, starting with IDBI Bank. I then had the opportunity to manage Strategic Alliances at Religare Finvest Ltd.
In 2018, I joined C2FO, a US-based SaaS Fintech company, as the Business Head for C2FO India. It was an exciting role where I led the capital finance business, generating a monthly liquidity pool of over $200 million in the supply chain marketplace. During my time at C2FO, I established key partnerships with renowned banks such as DBS Bank, HSBC, StanC, and SMBC. However, my entrepreneurial drive led me to embark on a new venture. In March 2021, I started Paytail, with the aim of revolutionizing offline retail. This journey allows me to combine my industry experience, business acumen, and passion for innovation to make a meaningful impact. Through Paytail, I am determined to bring about positive change in the offline retail sector and provide consumers with a seamless and affordable shopping experience.
What is your vision with Paytail?
Our vision is to revolutionize the affordability and accessibility of products for consumers, particularly in underserved areas, by providing instant digital finance and easy EMIs through our platform. Paytail is tech-driven and aims to solve consumer affordability and assist retail merchants in selling and upselling. Our platform enables offline merchants to offer easy and no-cost EMI to their customers in just 30 seconds, resulting in a better customer experience and hence more sales. NO credit check. EMIs at the lowest costs. Large Networks.
What are the interesting lessons you have learned as an entrepreneur?
I have learned the importance of adaptability, resilience, collaboration, and staying focused on the customer’s needs. Embracing failure as part of the journey and constantly learning from it has been crucial.
How large is the market opportunity Paytail is chasing? Growth potential? What are your plans for future growth and expansion?
India is primed to be the largest digital EMI market in the world with a massive addressable population. According to market estimates, the digital EMI user base in India is expected to reach 100 million by FY26. Another report suggests the industry will see a quantum leap to $45 – $50 billion in gross merchandise value (GMV) by FY26 by growing 15x. Digital merchant payments are expected to shoot up by over eight times and cross $1 trillion by FY26 from the current $285 billion. Digital lending, too, is projected to touch $100 billion in the next four-five years from the existing $20 billion, research estimates indicate.
Also, In FY 22, as per CRIF HighMark’s How India Lends report, consumer durable loans worth $11 bn were disbursed. This has been one of the fastest growing segments in entire retail lending space, with annual growth rate of 30% by value, and over 40 million loans in a year. Credit cards for instance grew by 4.4% by value and 17.7% by volume.
Our annual GMV run rate currently is at 950 crores and the same has grown 7X in past 12 month. With a strong product market fit, we plan to grow at the same pace for next 12 months also. We are working towards a goal of a digital borderless Bharat with a product that is built for the masses and isn’t constrained by boundaries. In the coming years, we plan to enable category-focused trade between over 150 million households from over 300,000 retailers across India. For consumers, our paperless credit service and ease of use make it a go-to option for all future purchases.
We are currently bringing gamification for a small merchant’s store with the tools required to convert potential buyers instantly. We also have plans to keep launching similar features for merchants and customers alike.
In what manner Paytail’s paperless EMI and No Cost EMI are more convenient for customers than traditional methods?
As the name suggests, Paperless EMI allows customers to apply for and complete the process of obtaining a personal loan online without a physical touchpoint and zero to minimal human intervention are the attributes of a paperless EMI. The app-based money lending ecosystem utilizes a data-backed credit lending model comprising traditional and alternative user data to sanction loans in less than 30 seconds.
Our solution makes it easy for retail brands to offer credit options such as digital equated monthly installments (EMIs) or discounts. By working with a range of lenders, we empower any brand to make credit available to customers at the point of sale. This is a major step forward in democratizing credit and making it accessible to smaller merchants.
The demand for credit options is growing, and we are leading the way by piloting instant loan products and expanding the scope of our digital EMI offerings. These credit products, which were once only available at electronics or white goods stores, are now being offered in a wide range of industries, including fashion retail, restaurants, auto dealers, and even small-town traders.
We are on a mission to weed out the inefficiencies in the existing checkout process and make the checkout experience in an offline store better or equal to online commerce. we are making credit more accessible to a wider range of consumers. Additionally, our DIY, paperless activation for merchants helps reach deeper into geographies and retail markets. Enables access to credit for those who have limited access due to low credit card penetration in India thus driving financial inclusion. Our offerings have the potential to increase demand for consumer durables and drive economic growth. We are offering merchants in Tier 2, 3 and Tier 4 cities to enter the digital credit ecosystem with a paperless and efficient process.
What are the technologies you are using to improve the performance and scalability of your financial application?
If you want to build a top quality credit product, technology is the way to go. We have been using microservices architecture from day one instead of building a monolith first and then rearchitect the entire system at a later stage. The system is built on distributed architecture with the right use of latest technologies like Elastic Search, Kafka, MongoDB etc. We are hosted on AWS cloud and use Kubernetes scaling to handle any amount of traffic seamlessly. A robust tech stack like ours paves the way to boost our application’s infrastructure, thus facilitating performance as well as scalability as we grow across India.
8-What are some emerging technologies that you think will have a significant impact on the fintech industry in the next 5-10 years?
There are several emerging technologies that are likely to have a significant impact on the fintech industry in India over the next 5-10 years. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) is already in use for use cases such as fraud detection, credit scoring, and customer service. We expect these technologies to become even more sophisticated, enabling more accurate and personalized financial advice and products.
What is your approach to customer service? How do you ensure that your customers are satisfied and their needs are met?
If you look at our product offerings closely you will find that they are designed to help merchants enhance the customer experience at the checkout stage. Such a product offering requires a sound understanding of consumer needs and demands. All our teams and departments are geared towards a customer-centric culture to foster a positive customer experience. They are always looking for feedback and keep an ear open to issues that customers and merchants might be facing. Our support team is constantly inclined towards stretching a helping hand to any issue that a merchant or consumer faces. We also have agents on the field, who are constantly dedicated towards the same.
Any rewards or recognition?
Silicon India- Top 10 Fintech Startups
Entrepreneur India-Best Payment Tech KANAN for you to answer.
Dun and Bradstreet- The Trailblazers- Top 50 Startups
GREAT PLACE TO WORK CERTIFIED- MAY 2023-MAY 2024 Top 50 and
