Mumbai-based ePayLater, that allows users to check out from their cart immediately with an option to pay later, has partnered with IRCTC to allow users to buy their train tickets now and pay them a few days later.
The idea behind paying later comes with every customer receiving a credit line for 14 days, and the amount lent can be paid within these 14 days. You can club all your payments and make a one-time payment, exactly like having a credit card. The company wants to get rid of the cash on delivery model and focus on lending.
Earlier, IRCTC had partnered with Citibank to allow monthly instalments of railway tickets, and even ‘pay on delivery’ for train tickets. Through this partnership, IRCTC hopes that people will book the tickets without paying for them during the time of booking.
This will also allow people to reserve their seats without worrying about the mode of payment at the time of the transaction. It will be fine to not have your transaction credentials handy so that the checkout process is faster and simpler.
However, customers will be offered only 14 days to pay all their dues back, a post which penalties and fees will be applied, along with a legal action.
Won’t this promote fraud?
If the Government allows every individual to access this feature, then we know that there will be a lot of abuse and fraud. Many people will simply book the tickets, take the journey and never pay back.
To tackle all these, Ministry of Railways and ePayLater will allow only select people to take advantage of the ‘buy now pay later’ feature. This selection will be done by data science and analytics, to pick out only those customers you have a good past transaction and payment history.
During checkout, you will see an option of selecting ePayLater which you can select to avail this feature. Only those who have a good transaction history, social media interaction and a few other parameters will get a chance to use ePayLater. This is a good idea, but might be biased towards those people who have been travelling a lot.
If you see an ePayLater option, you will have to enter your personal details along with your PAN Number of Aadhaar card number. You will receive an OTP on your registered mobile number to confirm the transaction.
In a way, it is like getting a loan sanctioned in your name, that you have to pay back within the next 14 days, a lenient time period. However, it does provide you with the advantage of faster checkouts and cumulative billing.
