No. 1049
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Contents
B u s i n e s s I n d i a u t h e m ag a z i n e o f t h e c o r p o r at e wo r l d
Government & Politics
22
• Is bjp eyeing a new government in J&K? • Chicken leg imports, higher msp hit poultry sector • T he government replaces ugc with new regulator
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HR
Finding talent at the top level is not enough; a leadership team also has to be assessed u
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Diplomacy
Secial Report 38 Will a widening current account deficit spoil the India growth party?
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AGM
60
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Business & Society
80
63 Kotak Mahindra Bank promotes education and livelihood under its csr initiatives
Energy
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Trina Solar enters rooftop solar segment
70
u Start-up 72 Payswiff is one of the fastest growing companies in the digital space
Nostalgia makes a royal comeback u
A&M
Editorials
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•m sp hikes may just boost seasonal rural incomes • Forbearance in monitoring auditors is the need of the hour • L et’s hope the icici Pru episode was an exception
Business Notes
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Development
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64
Mahindra & Mahindra builds a strong brand to connect with customers
7
Advertising & Marketing
64
AGM
62
Bizmen in the news
14
Visiting
16
Biznotes
8
Columns
80 26, 37, 74, 41, 81
Corporate Reports
46
Cover feature
28
Development
76
Diplomacy
68
Editorials
Reliance Jio begins well, but a lot will depend on how it handles risks and innovations
Retailing
I N T H I S I SS U E u
Business & Society India and Korea set a $50 billion trade target
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A one-man initiative takes one of India’s driest areas to water self-sufficiency
Market News
82
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• Defying negative forecasts, markets at new highs
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Interview
90
rd minister P. Javadekar h on the decision to conduct the jee and neet twice a year
18
• Pharma industry endeavours to improve the quality of medicines • Domestic textile sector is on a recovery path • Organic product market is all set to witness traction
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7
Energy
70
Extrack
85
Focus
42
Government & Politics
22
Guest column
84
HR
66
Interview
90
Letters to the Editor
6
Listening Post
10
Market News
82
Newscast
12
Obituary
78
Panju’s Page
27
People
88
Retailing
63
Selections
86
Special Report
38
Startup
72
Issue No. 1049 for the fortnight July 16-29, 2018. Released on July 16, 2018
Printed and published by Ashok H. Advani for Business India. Printed at Usha Offset Printers (P) Ltd., 125, Govt. Indl. Estates, Kandivili (W), Mumbai. Published at Business India, Wadia Building, 17/19 Dalal Street, Mumbai-400 001. No reproduction is permitted in whole or part without the express consent of Business India To order reprints contact: Business India Production Cell, 14th floor, Nirmal Building, Nariman Point, Mumbai-400 021. Tel: 2288 3942/43, 2204 5446
Start-Up
B u s i n e s s i n d i a u t h e m ag a z i n e o f t h e c o r p o r at e wo r l d
sa n jay Bor a de
spreading its wings
e-way bill software to make the entire experience seamless. payswiff’s e-way bill extends its support 24x7 and the software highlights online tracking of the consignment & the plug-in integrator available for any leading erp (enterprise resource planning) or accounting solution. “payswiff (formerly paynear) is a one-stop ideal solution for all business types”, explains prabhu ram, group ceo & md, payswiff, who has over 15 years of experience in the e-commerce and payments industries. Before payswiff, ram co-founded and established one of india’s largest online payment processing platforms – ebs (e-Billing solutions pvt ltd), an internet payment gateway, which was later acquired by ingenico in 2013. ram then moved out, with five of his ebs colleagues – priti shah, maulik shah, ravi Kiran, anil Bharadwaj and Krishna Kishore – and founding paynear (an offline platform), which has since penetrated into tier ii and iii cities, a model inspired by square in the us.
Growth and ability ram has been the driving force behind payswiff in terms of vision and strategy Ram, Priti: onethat involves investments stop tax solution and international expan“ sion. “we were all looking to start something together after ebs was acquired by ingenico,” says priti shah, ceo, payswiff. “we were inspired in building a lowPayswiff is one of the fastest growing companies in the digital space cost payment solution to the market, especially the sme segment, n this digital era, the fintech com- 2015-16, which moved through R34.30 which was untapped and the demand panies are booming and have cre- crore in 2016-17 to touch R86.50 crore and supply gap of one million pointated a niche for themselves. while in 2017-18 – at a cagr of about 600 per of-sales (pos) machines versus the the payment space has paved the cent. But it enjoys wafer-thin margins. requirement of 50 million. we foresaw way in driving india towards a cashin fact, it is one of the first players in india being a large market, will soon less economy, a favourable regula- the e-way bill, which was introduced be driven by digital payments!” “we had no plan structured in tory environment and the adoption of on 31 march 2018, and its operations technology has promoted the usage of are a great measure to ease the trans- advance, but we researched on numerdigital payments. with this as a back- portation modes for tax payers and ous business models, and payments drop, there is one company, payswiff transporters. payswiff is the only com- being our core strength, finally opted that has positioned itself to capitalise pany in india to combine tax-com- to enable easy and quick payment on the evolving dynamics by setting pliance with payment solutions. the transactions using mpos (mobile point its business model on delivering tech- software simplifies e-way bill genera- of sale) as our first product,” adds nology services to banks and acting tion and sharing with relevant parties maulik shah, ed, payswiff, whose inias a payment service provider (psp), for seamless delivery of goods at any tial step to progress was funds. “payprocessing 10 million transactions a level. payswiff’s e-way bill software swiff (erstwhile paynear) was then month, in volume terms and close to helps in reducing one’s operational ideated and co-founded in september R3,000 crore (last year) in value terms. cost and further offers gst return fil- 2013 with the product live in 2015”. payswiff had a topline of R1.80 crore in ing solutions, which integrate with the adds Krishna Kishore, co-founder &
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Start-Up
B u s i n e s s I n d i a u t h e m ag a z i n e o f t h e c o r p o r at e wo r l d
coo: “The first round of capital was raised by us – through our family and friends, who also supported our decision and venture”. They managed to raise R5 crore. In the second round of funding, Payswiff attracted other investors. “No matter how exciting the business opportunity is, to fathom a right team is important,” says Mitesh Majithia, one of the investors. “It is a pleasure to work with such a knowledgeable and accomplished team as Payswiff”. “As a savvy investor, my assessment is that these six founders together are complementary to each other,” adds Deepak Yadav, another investor. “As a team I feel, they are ready towards creating a good company, by solving the large-scale problems of cash-enabled commerce in India”. Yadav flew for the first time to Hyderabad in March 2017 to meet the team of founders and ask all sorts of questions. “And, today, after being on the journey with Payswiff for more than a year, I have a more profound understanding of the fabric of the company, as also a new exponential vision of it,” he adds, observing that each and every founder of the company has voluntarily ventured to manage an individual domain area of their expertise. “They manage their areas from a firm ground with an equally important expert set of further teams. For a start-up that is just four years old, having a great management structure and having a formidable team of experts at each level in the company is a great task. “We met the Payswiff team when they bought over one of our portfolio company, Goswiff, in Singapore. We were impressed by their growth and their ability to grow at a reasonable cost. At that time, they had just got the gst licence, which opened up new services since the merchants can also file tax via Payswiff now, on top of payments. We found that the company has a great team,” says Dusan Stojanovic, taking care of the investments of the Singapore-based True Global Ventures, which has put in $2 million. “The next step was the validation of our idea – Payswiff being the first payment aggregator for mpos and offline payments,” explains Ravi Kiran, cto, Payswiff. “We had worked
strongly on building trust with financial institutions and stakeholders on our business model that we strongly believed in”. Payswiff is ramping up and has acquired GoSwiff International Pte Ltd, a global financial solutions provider based in Singapore, in 2017. With this acquisition, Payswiff has become one of the largest payment solution platforms from India, with its footprint in 12 countries across the globe.
“GoSwiff provides an exciting opportunity to develop businesses in our markets instantly with its strong connect of major banks in Southeast Asia, CIS, the Middle East and Eastern Europe,” points out Ram. “The devices it has deployed are pre-certified, which also gives us an instant goto-market advantage”. In a short span of five years, Ram and his team have made Payswiff a global entity, which operates in 12 countries and offers an omni-channel payment solutions platform, which is device- and platformagnostic, through a single application. It enables merchants, isos and banks to accept payments through PoS terminals, app-based or any new-age payment solutions. Smooth and seamless ‘PayswiffOne’ the company’s flagship plug and play payments solution encompasses multiple forms of digital payments either in-store, or at home-delivery by accepting cards, net banking, bill payments, wallets, upi, emi, rewards and loyalty points. “The platform is multilingual and can be ported and deployed rapidly in the new international geographies, seamlessly. Payswiff has till date deployed PoS devices across more than 600 locations across India,” discloses Anil Bharadwaj, coo, Payswiff, talking u 73 u
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about the company partnering with 20 private and nationalised banks in India as transaction processing partners and exclusive arrangements with rbl Bank, hdfc Bank and Axis Bank. “Merchant acquiring is a critical part of getting India digital,” adds Sujatha Mohan, head, digital & new initiatives, rbl Bank. “We enable our partners to make merchant acquiring a smooth seamless process. We are quite excited, because this gives us a way to connect to a large merchant eco system and thereby offer better and more comprehensive banking services to merchants”. Globally, the group provides solutions to more than 40 banks and has deployed more than 200,000 PoS terminals. Recently, the company was awarded a licence as a gst Suvidha Provider (gsp). Payswiff’s customers will be able to file gst returns through Payswiff’s platform from early 2018 onwards. Today, Payswiff, is a leading global fintech firm, which offers omni channel payments processing and tax compliance solutions to sme s across India. “We are happy to work with Payswiff,” says Chennapa Naidu Darapaneni, ceo, Mera Events, Payswiff’s first acquired merchant. “Partnering with them helps us ensure that even our last minute customers looking for booking tickets can easily and securely do it right at the event venues.”. Nowadays online businesses require a robust solution that is seamless and secure, for both merchants and customers. Businesses face a variety of challenges, including the constant evolution of technologies, changing consumer behaviours and a wide variety of payment methods. These are exactly the areas the Payswiff team is looking to address. And, with a toehold in Singapore, the company is working on plans for psp business in key South East Asian countries, as well emerging markets too. “We are in the sunrise market and we are poised to grow almost double this year,” sums up Ram. “As an organisation, we see ourselves as an enabler and catalyst to usher in this digital transformation for our customers and stakeholders”. u LANCELOT JOSEPH lancelot.joseph@businessindiagroup.com
