Of mobile vans and mobile app payments

Rohit Kumar, CEO & CMD, XPay.Life talks about how they help with bill payments in rural and Tier-2/3 cities via ATP kiosks, PoS machines and mobile vans at the same time providing earning opportunities to franchisees as well.

How does the whole thing work? The process of payments for B2B and B2C?

The B2B and B2C processes are quite different from each other. For individual customers, the ease of usage is important. The process of utility bill payment for the customers is facilitated by digital solutions such as mobile applications and the website. We cater to the B2B sector by offering ATP kiosks, PoS machines and mobile vans to the billers and providing earning opportunities to the franchisees as well. These will facilitate bill payment to the customers who reside in the Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities as well as the rural areas of the country.

What are the benefits for merchants and for consumers?

Customers can benefit from the seamless process of immediate and secure payment of their utility bills from the mobile app and online Web. The platform also enables them to use cash as a form of digital payment along with other digital payment methods such as UPI, credit/debit cards, Internet banking, mobile banking and using UPI payments. There are zero convenience fees/Internet charges for below and above Rs 2000, hence customers need not pay a single penny extra on their bill.

They can also avail the banking facilities that the mobile van provides along with facilitating bill payment. This is a boon to a customer who resides in the most remote area of the country and would need to travel more than 40–50 km at the cost of his daily wage either to pay utility bills or to access an ATM. The merchants can own a PoS machine and the mobile van on ownership or franchisee models and earn extra income without any potential risks.



Is this focused entirely on semi-urban or rural markets? If yes, why?

As per a google BCG report, 80% of the rural population and 20% of the urban quanta still depends on cash payment for all their day-to-day financial transactions. XPay Life caters to both the rural and urban sectors by providing infrastructures like ATP kiosks, PoS machines and mobile vans that accept cash as a digital payment method.

What are the advantages over (or comparison with) existing digital payment systems like Paytm (which reportedly also works with US$)?

Our mobile app is built using one of the most secure payment technologies of blockchain which is the underlying technology for cryptocurrencies like bitcoins. So, the payment gateway is highly secure. We are a BBPS/NPCI approved agent institution and all the payments are BBPS assured. One other safety measure we have incorporated is that the XPay.Life doesn’t store any credit/debit card details and hence safeguarding the customer confidential data like card details, CVV number, etc from the prying eyes of the cyber fraudulent.

The government has been looking to drive the transition of the country from a cash dependent one to a cashless economy. Similarly, we too, want the transition to happen from the traditional cash dependency to the digital modes which are quite a cumbersome process in the semi-urban and rural areas. Hence we are easing the process of this transition, making it simplified for the users.



Who are your current customers? What are the types of businesses and consumers using your existing services?

We currently have a pan India reach with customers from across the country. From individuals who use it for everyday bill payments to businesses who look at more largescale transactions, we have a wide customer base. Customer base in 200+ cities and for B2B almost all the ESCOM’s are using our services. As of now we have 10 lakh+ customer pan India.

Who is your target audience for the future? Primarily cash users?

Our target audience is a mix of tech-savvy mobile app users and also the cash users who prefer paying through queues at the biller’s collection points and the customers from the rural region who are intimidated by the complex online payment modes. Being an economy that relies largely on cash, it is not easy to make the shift to a cashless economy overnight. We are providing infrastructure that makes it simple to pay by even using cash as a digital payment mode and will help rural India to educate/train them to become digital subsequently .

Apart from security enabled by technology such as AI and Blockchain, what are the advantages that the new product provides over existing solutions?

XPay.Life is built on the most stringent business model of AMBIC that stands for Artificial Intelligence, Mobility, Blockchain, IoT, and Cloud. We are leveraging futuristic cutting edge technologies for the platform. India has a significant percentage of non-English speakers. To make it more user-friendly, we have made the app and online website available in 13 regional languages. Also, the login procedure is simplified so that account authentication can be done by providing the phone number or directly logging in through Facebook or Gmail. We are easing the bill payment process in the semi-urban and rural sectors by accepting cash as a digital payment mode along with other popular digital modes of payment.

The mobile van facilitates banking and bill payment to the most remote villages by traversing the strategic, pre-defined route and is owned by the billers of that region thus making bill collection easy through the ATP kiosks and facilitating banking facilities like cash-withdrawal through the XPay.Life mobile van. We are the first in India to build a digital solution to onboard a majority of rural India on to the digital bandwagon.