As digital adoption increases in India, fintech ecosystem is getting wildly disrupted with innovations. Introduced by Paytm in 2019, the payment soundbox business is witnessing a boom in the small and medium businesses.
Quick rundown 📕
You must have heard of this sound ’Ching….Paytm payment of 500 rupees received’ while shopping in your nearest kirana store.
Do you know these ‘sound of money’ boxes are turning the fintech startups profitable?
Early days ☀️
The first payment soundbox was launched by Paytm in 2019 to assist kirana stores with verifying payment receipts using loud audio alerts and notifications.
Because of the convenience and affordability, these devices went viral in terms of adoption among the small and medium businesses.
Disruption 💣
The point of sales (POS) market was majorly present in the restaurants and relatively bigger stores and was dominated by Pine Labs before 2019.
After the launch of Paytm soundbox, it certainly got disrupted because of the box’s widespread adoption among large as well as small businesses.
The battle 🏕️
Looking at the ripe market, all the fintech players including BharatPe, PhonePe, Pine Labs, Mswipe, Mobikwik designed and launched soundboxes to compete with Paytm. This competition led to a harsh battle among the fintech players.
Interestingly, PhonePe took a huge marketshare with a cheaper alternative!
The Utopia: How is it turning the loss making fintechs profitable?
1/ These boxes come with a monthly subscription fees, which gives a high margin recurring revenue to the fintechs
2/ The retained access to small & medium businesses has boosted the lending business segment of all the fintechs
Impact 💥
Paytm soundboxes processes 13.7 billion+ transactions in FY23, resulting in a 44% increase in payment revenue.
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