Manipal Technologies Ltd. has announced plans to expand its SahiPay digital payment acceptance service to three lakh merchant locations across rural India by the end of 2020 from nearly 90,000 merchants, a top executive said.
The gross transaction value of the service, introduced nine months ago, is close to ₹300 crore and is expected to cross ₹1,700 crore in 2020, a senior executive said. “Currently, the service is offered in 23 States, and we will cover the whole of rural India soon,” said Rajesh Shet, VP and business head, Manipal Technologies Ltd.
SahiPay is an integrated platform for rural merchants that offers digital payment acceptance, banking and value added services to villagers and farmers. Manipal Technology has provided its Micro ATM devices to merchants who provide banking services as well as digital consumer services to customers.
An integrated platform, SahiPay can accept payment from any digital channel like credit cards, debit cards, AePS, UPI, Bharat QR and NFC. It allows merchants to earn through the platform by making use of banking and value added services available with the device.
In the value added service, merchants provide instant and safe money transfer, DTH and mobile recharge, utility bill payment, assisted e-commerce, payment of government taxes, as well as payments for insurance policies. Banking services include enabling cash withdrawal or deposits, providing various lending products, balance inquiry, mini statement and Aadhaar seeding. This is helping in digital financial inclusion, officials said.
At a time when festive shopping is expected to peak, exposing shoppers to cyber crime, Manipal said its patented virtual card can save individuals from data breach during internet financial transactions and usage of credit and debit card. “When security in the digital world has become a matter of grave concern and data protection has become a challenge, we have come out with a digital solution to combat digital fraud,” said Prashanth Pareira, VP SBU head, Emerging business, Manipal Technologies.
“Our patented virtual token, which is an offline OTP, creates a single-use number that looks and functions like an OTP number. It is an ideal multi factor authentication solution for e-commerce transactions, internet and mobile banking and even ATM/POS transactions,” said Abhay Gupta, CEO, Manipal Technologies.
With the offline virtual card, the sensitive card number is replaced by a one-time use dynamic number. The virtual card number appears like a valid credit card number and expires after one use. The next time you do another transaction you will get another number, eliminating the chance of data breach, officials said.
