Transerv powers cashless digital India with social wallet Udio

By Anusha Ashwin Internet has eased many aspects of our life and in recent years, it has enabled and eased digital financial transactions. Mumbai-based TranServ Private Limited is one such company that has taken long strides to be at the top of the pyramid in the digital payment market. TranServ was established in 2011 when its co-Founder and CEO Anish Williams witnessed a tangible market gap in the Indian digital payments industry. He felt the consumer-facing end of online transactions was extremely broken. He established TranServ in order to eliminate the pain points in financial transactions by leveraging technology to develop and deliver an unparalleled end-user experience within a secure, safe and swift payments atmosphere.

Explaining how he was led into the business of digital payments, Anish Williams introduces TranServ saying, “We started out with designing and providing payments technology for our banking partners and gradually developed a payments infrastructure to support our entire catalogue of payments-related services. The prime focus was on delivering greater convenience and value-addition to both users and merchants in order to popularise digital transactions in the country. This approach led to TranServ being chosen as the preferred payments partners for several government projects for financial inclusion, such as the Government Grant Disbursals and Amul Dairy solution.”

An alumnus of St. Stephen’s College and an MBA graduate, Willaims has a deep understanding of India’s financial market. He has held leadership roles with several top banks and leading financial institutions. Prior to establishing TranServ in 2011, over the course of a career spanning almost two decades, Anish worked for American Express, Citi and HSBC.

The experience in the banking sector taught him that the fintech industry in India is at an exciting phase, and digital wallets – owing to the greater convenience and accessibility that they bring – have become more ingrained into the everyday transactional behavior of the Indian consumer. He was quick to understand that digital wallet owners in the country will one day outnumber the credit/debit card owners and he is also sure that the world is soon going to witness mobile wallets users outnumber bank account holders.

“On the back of such massive adoptions, the industry is pegged for an exponential 127.5% CAGR over the next five years and is expected to reach $6.6 billion in net worth by the year 2020. In short, the future for digital wallet looks bright,” positively expresses Williams.

Williams formed TranServ along with a group of senior bankers, who have a wealth of experience in the payment sector. The company is co-founded by Sandeep Ghule, Aditya Gupta and Amar Habibullah. The company’s solutions are designed well, integrating a consumer-centric approach and are easy to use. They enable their customers in e-commerce, developers, on-demand companies and so on… to launch quickly by simplifying payment gateway integration.

Digital Wallet Suite

TranServ’s specialization spans across end-to-end payment program management solutions, helping India Inc. and consumers at large engage in cash free transactions. The company’s product range comprises digital wallets, prepaid cards, mobile virtual cards, co-branded wallets, and corporate expense management solutions.

“We have a product suite for businesses that leverage easy APIs to allow our partners to collect and disburse payments efficiently in addition to driving greater consumer engagement. Transerv’s API-based wallet solutions are currently being used by several leading businesses such as BookMyShow, Askmebazaar.com, Portea and Crownit, as well as a host of smaller merchants and Facebook stores,” says Williams.

Udio is TranServ’s flagship product. The launch of Udio has set a new benchmark in terms of consumer engagement, as it is India’s first social wallet. Udio is a Croatian word that means sharing. By enabling features such as splitting bills, social gifting and sending/requesting money for its users, Udio transforms payments into a medium of interaction between its users and their social circles.

TranServ recently made news with its Udio app. “With the Udio app, we are taking the next step in the field of digitally-led social payments in India by seamlessly integrating the social aspect with our secure and swift digital solutions. We strongly believe in this concept and its viability in the Indian context, which is why we have integrated peer-to-peer transactions into our own offerings. Peer-to-peer digital payments solutions, such as Venmo, have already been proven to be extremely successful in other markets such as the US. We are confident that India’s growing smartphone user base will welcome this new development with open arms and adopt Udio as their default payments partner for all online and offline transactions,” says Williams.

When Williams conceptualized Udio, he was certain that this product is not going to be a mere off-the-shelf wallet. He wanted Udio to be loaded with superpowers that can make electricity & gas payments, DTH & mobile recharges, bill splits and gifting options.

“Udio Wallet is our biggest bet. Browsing through our wallet will be fun and interactive, just like a social medium platform, while wallet users can engage with each other through social transactions such as splitting bills, sending/requesting money, and group payments. With functionality of social gifting integrated with location and context, Udio helps create experiences, which truly puts consumer at the heart of the solution and ensures that the experience is designed to delight. Udio users can gift their friend’s merchant vouchers, coffee, drinks, desserts and even spa sessions at their favorite hangouts! All of this and more with just one small app in a phone!” exclaims Williams.

Williams has built his career in the banking industry. This obviously means that he knew that there is potential for more innovative avenues for Udio’s applications. He created Udio Checkout, to ease e-commerce merchants’ Payment Gateway issues. Dubbed as the ‘Payment Genie’, Udio Checkout is a solution, which has come up with an end-to-end omni-channel platform addressing all the merchant’s needs.

Udio also has another offering called the Udio Button, which enables even offline businesses to transact online. Businesses can just include an Udio Button next to their product (the button can be also embedded onto a social media page) and customers can make immediate, safe and secure payments. Additionally, the feature also allows users to pay for purchases through a payment link shared by the buyer via email or SMS, which ensures payments on the go.

“We have gone a step further with Udio. The issue of settlement with vendors and processing refunds has been a topic of argument in the Indian payment gateway industry. The Udio solution provides instant refunds directly into the consumer’s Udio Wallet, a semi-closed loop prepaid account issued in partnership with RBL Bank,” indicates Williams.

For premium merchants, Udio provides a platform which helps sellers maintain documents online, generate invoices and track payments. Furthermore, merchants can draw traffic into their stores by announcing discounts & promotions and by creating customized campaigns using the platform. Udio provides an integrated platform to manage payment collection, loyalty and marketing promotions in a seamless manner.

Willaims’ penchant for innovating new digital payment solutions is obvious with yet another significant development at TranServ. The company, in April 2016, entered into a partnership with Micromax and Visa. This is India’s first smartphone-based native payments solution in an exclusive partnership with a handset manufacturer. Micromax users will be able to use mobile-based Push Payments using mVisa, and make interpersonal payments to personal contacts. TranServ will enable Micromax users to conduct financial and social transactions through native phone integrations such as contacts in the device address book and messaging. Multiple payment features will be enabled for Micromax as a service layer and will provide a ubiquitous payment solution in conjunction with the Udio Visa card.

“This agreement between a global financial services corporation, a major mobile phone manufacturer and a leading fin-tech company is the first-of-its-kind in the Indian context, and is meant to fulfill our vision of enabling a comprehensive array of online and offline payments tools for the Indian consumer and aiding the digitization of payments,” Williams expressed excitedly.

Winning Investors’ Confidence

Early 2014, TranServ raised capital from Nirvana Venture Advisors Private Ltd. As part of the deal Amit Patni, Chairman of Nirvana Venture Advisors and Rajan Mehra, Managing Director of Nirvana Venture Advisors joined TranServ’s board. The funds were used for scaling up the company’s operations and resources to deliver its planned payment products.

Meanwhile, an increasing demand from government organizations, dairy product manufacturers and bootstrapped e-commerce entrants made TranServ, in a Series B funding, raise an undisclosed amount from Faering Capital’s India Evolving Fund.

Much recently in April 2016, in a third round of funding, TranServ raised about $15 million by selling an undisclosed stake to investors led by Micromax Informatics and IDFC Asset Management Company. Nirvana and Faering Capital India Evolving Fund also participated in the Series C funding. With this additional funding TranServ intends to develop and introduce new products including micro-credit solutions and also intends to hire more people and build innovative technologies around payments.

“Given the success this tech-centric approach has generated for us, innovative tech will continue to play an integral part in our future roadmap as well. This will allow us to not only present our users with the most tailored payments solutions, but will also enable us to add to the consumer usage by delivering a high-quality experience. As such, we are currently exploring the viability of several latest tech developments in order to optimize our service offerings and maintain our leadership position in the Indian fin-tech industry. There is a huge opportunity, as millions of new businesses will go online in India in the next five years. No matter who gets there first, we’re just excited about somebody offering a good feature-rich payment gateway solution. The growing digitization of transactions will help us reduce the dependence on physical cash and will promote the cause of a truly digital, cashless Indian economy,” ambitiously concludes Williams.