00:00 Hello and welcome to BQ Prime. We are here on the second day of the Global Fintech Fest
00:03 here in Mumbai, where country's biggest sort of fintechs as well as some of the smaller
00:08 fintechs are out here, part of a three day function that's happening in Mumbai, where
00:14 they're discussing how the businesses will move forward, what are the kind of innovations
00:18 that they need to look out for, and the resilience, the inclusivity, as well as sustainability
00:24 of the fintech ecosystem. Today, we have with us Ajay Adheseshan, the founder and CEO of
00:30 PayMate. With us, Ajay, welcome firstly. I wanted to ask you to begin with what what
00:36 are your thoughts on this on this fintech fest? I mean, it's become bigger than ever
00:39 now.
00:40 It's amazing. I mean, it's mind boggling. The amount of fintechs over here participating
00:45 the solutions. I think we've come a long way when I saw it last year, and we were not even
00:50 present last year from a booth perspective. And we have a booth this year. So it's incredible
00:55 the amount of progress on the fintech front and we're leading the fintech revolution globally.
01:00 Right, you know, the impact UPI has had, and it's going global as well. So similarly, I
01:05 think all the solutions coming out of India are also going to be powering solutions globally.
01:11 And you know, as company PayMate now is expanding into Middle East and, you know, Semia and
01:16 Asia Pacific. So I think this is the best possible platform and forum to propagate fintech
01:23 in India.
01:24 All right, let me talk to you a little bit about PayMate itself. Now, the business that
01:28 you're in the B2B functioning that you are currently doing, I wanted to understand what
01:34 is the status of that because we a lot of digital payments that we talk about is ends
01:38 up being B2C. And that conversation sort of revolves around that. But I was hearing from
01:43 another founder who was talking about a $42 trillion opportunity, you know, from a global
01:47 scale perspective, but tell us a little bit about what the situation is.
01:52 Yeah, so let's get the numbers right. Globally, commercial payments is 135 trillion opportunity.
01:58 Okay, India itself is a 8 trillion opportunity. Okay. And then if you look at the India landscape,
02:05 I think we've solved for a lot, but largely on the consumer side, right. So we just started
02:11 to tap into the B2B side of things, right. And B2B, you know, in India, if you look at
02:18 the 8 trillion, probably 50% of that is electronified. So which is moving on, you know, basically
02:26 EFT, portals. The other 50% is on cash and check even today. So we have a lot of progress
02:34 to make on that front. And secondly, I think even on the portion of the payments, which
02:41 is moving on EFT rails, there's a lot to be done from a true digitization standpoint,
02:48 both for enterprises and small businesses.
02:51 So at Payment, how do you view digitization of your customers' businesses?
02:57 Yeah, so we start on the enterprise side. We, you know, identified pain points. Although
03:04 enterprises have tools, you know, IT tools, ERP, what have you, right. But there are manual
03:09 legs. And if you look at typical enterprises, you know, paying the suppliers, a lot of working
03:16 capital sort of tussle is going on, you know, suppliers want to get paid on time, etc. So
03:22 from our standpoint, how do we digitize and automate the entire process, all the legs,
03:30 how are we able to reconcile all of that? How are we able to provide working capital
03:35 tools, both from an enterprise and a small business standpoint, so that you can extend
03:41 the payables for an enterprise, and you can, you know, enable early payments for the small
03:46 business. So that's a basic one, two sort of approach we have. And we built a platform
03:52 around that. And today, that same platform is now being taken directly to small businesses,
03:58 either as a direct to small business, or via partners, like banks and fintechs.
04:06 Tell me a little bit about the working capital side of the story. Now, you have a commercial
04:13 card that you that you provide to your customers. What is it that people are looking for when
04:17 it comes to these sort of payments and receiving these payments on time, and doing that through
04:22 a mode of credit, technically, right?
04:24 Yeah, so I think it's clear that working capital is a very integral part of the overall offering,
04:32 right? And you can provide all the automation in the world. But if you're not going to have
04:37 some working capital angle to it, it's going to be difficult to sell. And clearly, at the
04:42 end of the day, we're seeing how we can solve for India Unink, through India Inc, right,
04:46 going from corporate enterprise to small businesses. And we've been sort of moving down that value
04:51 chain. So for us, right from the beginning, when we started in the travel sector, and
04:56 travel has been the beachhead for commercial cards. And we got a lot of experience and
05:03 insights over there. So we were able to now take that use case and say, how can we now
05:07 take it across to any industry or vertical, any supply chain ecosystem, or any third party
05:14 aggregation of small businesses. And today, we sort of perfected the art of being able
05:19 to marry up platform, our apps with a commercial card, which is really beneficial to all the
05:27 stakeholders in these ecosystems.
05:30 How did that work for you as a company in terms of the revenue opportunities?
05:35 So clearly, we are, you know, transaction driven. So all our revenues come from transactions.
05:40 So the more transactions on our platform, the more volumes on our platform, the more
05:44 money we make. So it's simple. And since we are using the card as a tool, we actually
05:49 enabling even our partners, right? So we work with banks, we work with the networks. And
05:54 for them, they're looking at monetizing further from a B2B standpoint. So clearly, we become
06:01 an enabler for that. And we're able to move the traditional B2B transaction, which can
06:06 go from point A to point B, bank account to bank account, to card to bank, and thereby
06:12 solving for working capital, and also enabling all the providers, including ourselves to
06:18 make more money out of it.
06:19 Lastly, I want to check with you now, this is something that every reporter asks every
06:24 founder, but is there a funding or fundraising opportunity that you're looking forward to?
06:29 Or do you think you're okay with for now?
06:32 So we are in the pre IPO, a fundraise mode right now. And as you know, it's in public
06:39 domain, we have IPO aspirations. So we are in the midst of, you know, closing that out
06:43 over the next 30 to 60 days.
06:46 How far is it?
06:48 That's a great question. So it's work in progress is all I can say.
06:53 Okay, lastly, I wanted to check with you. So this question of the IPO being work in
06:57 progress, this is something that I've heard now from multiple people who sort of came
07:02 to the market said that we want to raise funds, but then they're keeping things on hold for
07:06 at least the foreseeable few months. I wanted to ask you, is this the current market conditions
07:13 that's probably not allowing that entry or is there something else that's working?
07:18 No, clearly, so every company has its own compulsions. And we all know that, you know,
07:24 after the first cycle of Indian companies, tech companies going IPO, there was a bit
07:29 of a setback to that process. And generally markets were, you know, not so embracing.
07:35 I think that's changing now. And there is definitely opportunity for tech companies
07:39 to go back to the public markets from an India perspective. And that's starting to happen
07:44 as we speak. So I think there is, you know, light at the end of the tunnel. And we believe
07:50 that, you know, the conditions are starting to look favorable. And it's time to reconsider.
07:58 All right. Thank you so much, Ajay, for joining us on this conversation.
08:02 Thank you.
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