PayU considering digital bank push; to adopt Aadhar as central to business

PayU, the financial technology startup owned by South Africa based Naspers, is planning to setup a Digibank service in coming 12-18 months, and expects to record $100 million revenue from the service during FY18. The startup is currently providing financial technology/platform to merchants for facilitating online payments, and boasts of INR6,000 crore worth of digital transactions through its platform. It expects to double the amount of digital transactions by the end of current year.

The startup’s CEO, Amrish Rau, further explained the company’s strategy and said that “Our long-term plan is to set up Digibank which will look at easing account opening for youth and provide banking services to those who are unbanked and have no access to credit. We plan to set this bank in next 12-18 months. We have over 3 lakh merchants using our platform. We count one entity or company as one merchant and the base is growing every month. When we start Digibank, we will tie up with others that will host our customers. It will be hassle free banking along with our own financial products”.

In a bid to strengthen its presence in digital lending space, the firm had invested in a number of startups last year such as ZestMoney, Ribbit Capital and Omidyar Network. Besides, it is pushing the Aadhar based technology platform to comply with Government of India’s mandate to make Aadhar as bedrock of all digital avenues.