[Exclusive Interview] This Fintech Startup Is Empowering Millions Of Indian Merchants With Instant Digital Finance

Recently, we interacted with Mr. Vikas Garg, Co-founder & CEO, PayTail, and asked him about the concept of instant digital finance, and how they’re empowering millions of merchants across India.

Here are the highlights of the interview:

1. Tell me something about yourself.. How did Paytail happen? What was the inspiration?

I, along with Amit Chaturvedi, founded Paytail in September 2020. However, the operations started in March 2021. Headquartered in Gurugram, the company was incepted with a mission of revolutionizing offline commerce by enabling instant paperless and no-cost EMIs to consumers. 

With Paytail, we built a trusted network of brands and retailers by offering them flexible solutions for sustainable growth. The platform enables merchants to offer their customers an instant credit limit of Rs 2 lakh in just 30 seconds. It enhances the CX, and the convenience allows the buyers to accelerate their purchasing decision. It ultimately results in increased conversion rates, sales, and finally, sales. And that’s what our mission is. The consumers can also get EMIs with debit and credit cards and pre-approved offers through our platform. The formalities can be done in a matter of minutes in real-time. 

2. What was the pain point your startup wants to resolve? 

With Paytail, we want to create a level playing field for all retail merchants in India where the technological barrier is not an obstacle to help them in more conversions and sales. 

3. USP of the startup 

Paytail is tech-driven and aims to solve consumer affordability and assist retail merchants in selling and upselling. Our platform enables offline merchants to offer easy and no-cost EMI to their customers in just 30 seconds, resulting in a better customer experience and hence more sales. 

4. Funding raised so far. How much investment is by the founders/ any other source to start the business? 

So far, the company has raised more than $2mn million in funding.

5. Name some of your competitors in the sector you are catering. How is your startup different from your competitors? 

We are catering to a blue ocean opportunity of millions of small merchants. Our sweet spot in the market are the merchants in discretionary spend segments with overall monthly EMI potential of anywhere between 50K to 7 lacs largely in Tier 2, cities and towns. Due to the small size, these merchants have been left uncatered by the traditional NBFCs which largely rely on heavily deployed man and machinery models. Paytail’s playbook is to win over the market on speed and experience for the users. While the market in which we operate is pretty much an untapped territory, but wherever the competition is present, this approach gives us an edge over them.