Cross-border payment services, PayNearby to start inward remittance
Fintech startup PayNearby will start a facility for inward cross-border remittance by October, allowing beneficiaries to withdraw the amount as per their requirement rather than taking the whole amount in one go. “The Reserve Bank has granted us the approval under the second cohort for cross-border remittance. India gets about USD 80 billion as remittance every year, which either comes in cash or bank account”, Anand Kumar Bajaj, Founder, MD & CEO, PayNearby, said. People from rural and urban areas can withdraw from various forex exchange providers at district headquarters or talukas. However, there are only 50,000-60,000 such forex providers. “What we showed to the Reserve Bank is that instead of a one-time cash-in-cash-out mechanism, one can use the Rupee Drawing Arrangement (RDA), which can directly go to the bank account of the receiver, and the money can be remitted to the Aadhaar number (linked account)”, Mr Bajaj said. PayNearby has created a dedicated IFSC code which will act as the router to deposit the money to the Aadhaar-linked bank account of the receiver. He said it took the company about 6-7 months in the testing phase and refinement of the product is still in the process. PayNearby will be able to launch this service in about a quarter or by October, Bajaj added.
Digital maturity is a journey with moving goalposts, shows data
Nasscom and Avasant’s Digital Enterprise Maturity 3.0 — Boosting Business Resilience Through Technology report is an in-depth analysis of the practices of 550 global enterprises at varying levels of digital maturity. Assessing such complex endeavours will also require the current maturity index to evolve over time. Digital transformation has evolved from “nice-to-have” to “need-to-have”. By 2023, the global digital economy is likely to make up more than 50% of global nominal GDP, at $53 trn. Accelerated consumption trends will be seen in Digital commerce, Digital payments, Digital content consumption, WFH-related infrastructure and smart devices. $1.8trn: expected size of global technology spend in 2022, up 6.5% from $1.7 trn in 2021. Digital revenues for service providers were more than a third of total revenue in FY22, up from 20-25% in FY20. Increased adoption of core digital technologies like cloud, AI/ML, IoT & cybersecurity will be seen.
Automakers drive into the metaverse to cater to digitally savvy customers
Maruti Suzuki India unveiled the Grand Vitara on NEXAverse, its metaverse initiative. The mid-size sport utility vehicle (SUV) will also be the first car in the world that can be booked through a metaverse platform. The company plans to spend 10-15 per cent — or Rs 6-8 crore — of its innovation budget on the metaverse. Maruti is not the only auto company that is joining the metaverse bandwagon. MG Motor India, which launched the MGverse last month, was the first company to launch itself on the metaverse. Swedish luxury carmaker Volvo Cars, too, had a pre-event launch of its XC40 Recharge on the VolvoVerse on July 21. The main reason why these automakers are getting onto the metaverse is to enhance the customer experience, as more and more buyers — especially the younger generation — prefer to conduct their affairs on digital platforms. A car buying process includes 28 touch-points, of which 17-20 have been digitized by most carmakers. Processes such as selecting financing options and related documentation will be digitalised in the future, according to Deloitte’s Global State of Consumer Tracker Survey 2021.
Online retail may hit Rs 4.9-trillion GMV this year
India’s online retail landscape remains on a robust growth trajectory despite transition to offline. In April, May, and June this year, close to 40-60 per cent year-on-year (YoY) growth was observed, according to a report by consulting firm RedSeer. With a compound annual growth rate of 38 per cent, the market is set for strong gross merchandise value (GMV) growth, and a GMV of Rs 4.9 trillion is expected in calendar year 2022. Additionally, a strong share of tier-2 online shoppers is also expected to further drive this growth. “Offline retail and recreation activity are back to pre-Covid levels. Yet India’s online retail remains on a robust growth trajectory despite offline unlocking,” said Mrigank Gutgutia, partner at RedSeer. In the India e-tailing GMV Index, there is a monthly growth comparison. In 2022, this was 60 per cent higher in April than April 2021. It was 38 per cent higher in May than May 2021 and 42 per cent higher in June than June 2021.
Advertisers chase branded audio, video to court youth
Brands across categories, such as cosmetics, electronics and dating apps, are increasingly crafting content tie-ups with audio and video streaming platforms, going beyond conventional sponsorships. While electronics brand boAt has launched a podcast with IVM Podcasts, Hyundai is co-creating a show with MTV. Dating apps Tinder and Bumble regularly run shows with influencers on their YouTube channels. Media industry executives said the idea is to reach out to primarily young customers who are not exposed to much advertising, given that many of them go for subscription-based services. Costs of co-creation can also be lower than a big advertising campaign, and streaming platforms often come with rich data on user cohorts that can be addressed. The biggest advantage of co-creating content is unadulterated brand messaging. e-commerce brand Nykaa has a comprehensive YouTube marketing plan and likes to concentrate on providing its target customers with consumable information on beauty, personal care, and cosmetic skills, rather than stressing product sales.
Railways to run parcel trains to tap boom in e-commerce
Indian Railways plans to run dedicated parcel trains on specific routes to capture a chunk of goods shipped by online marketplaces. The national transporter hopes the new service will help it regain some of the non-bulk freight business that has moved to roadways over the decades. To start with, the railways will regularize 100-odd dedicated express parcel trains launched during the covid lockdowns in 2020. This will be followed by new Parcel Express services on routes with high potential for small freight traffic, mainly covering tier-II and III cities that have become major destinations for goods from e-commerce marketplaces. Railways’ parcel service had seen immense growth last year when revenue from this segment touched almost ₹300 crore in FY22, up from roughly ₹140 crore in the previous year.
Google Street View comes to India, with data from local partners
A decade after it was prevented from capturing data for its Street View services, Google has launched its 360-degree interactive panorama feature for 10 Indian cities with data from local partners Tech Mahindra and Mumbai-based Genesis International. This has been made possible by the new National Geospatial Policy, 2021, which lets local companies collect this kind of data and license it to others, making it also the first country where Street View has been enabled primarily by partners. Called Project Gullify, Street View will initially launch for 10 Indian cities and be rolled out to 50 by end of the year, mapping over 700,000 km in two years. After Google paused its Street View efforts in India, following objections raised by the Bengaluru police in 2011, Indian players like Wonobo and later MapMyIndia started offering their own versions of interactive panorama maps. But Street View, given its integration with Google Maps, is expected to have much more impact, helping users with a better understanding of road conditions and discovery of local businesses.
NCFDC, the digital backbone of UCBs, to start operations in early 2023
The proposed Umbrella organization for Urban Cooperative Banks, National Cooperative Financial and Development Company (NCFDC), will be ready for operations in early calendar 2023. The company would work on bulk buying of IT and digital services and develop the digital banking backbone, giving access to 50 million UCB customers. This entity will not nurse a cooperative bank. About 70 per cent of UCBs are small, tier-I banks. They need support, and the technology they use will not be a capital expenditure, but will be available on rent so that they do not have to spend much. Customers of UCBs, including those with a single branch, will be able to access their bank accounts across two million customer touchpoints.
India’s first online B2B marketplace for beverages
Mumbai-based start-up Malaki, which has a portfolio of luxury beverages, has launched BeverageCart, touted to be the country’s first app-based platform for beverages. BeverageCart aims to address the last mile delivery issue for retailers, hotels, restaurants and caterers by facilitating online wholesale orders. The start-up will directly buy products from brands and sell as well deliver those to the clients for commission and a platform fee – a hybrid business model acting as both aggregator and distributor.
Internet usage grows faster in rural India
The number of internet users in rural India increased 18 percent last year, faster than growth in urban areas and continuing a trend that started two years ago. Internet users in urban India increased by 5 percent in 2021. Rural India has 351 million users, or 37 percent of people there, according to a report by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and data analytics company KANTAR. Around 762 million Indians have not adopted the internet yet, out of which 63 percent live in rural areas. Goa has the maximum internet penetration and Bihar the lowest among states, the report said. The number of internet users will grow by over 200 million in the next two years and there will be 900 million of them by 2025, the report said. Internet growth in urban India seems to have hit a plateau, with 341 million users and 69 per cent penetration. Indian transactions jumped significantly during the coronavirus pandemic, as the report noted, a record 51 per cent increase from 230 million transactions in 2019. Entertainment, communications, and social media were the top three activities engaged in by Indian internet users.
Neobanking to create value for a large segment of customers
Neobanks can be defined as branchless digital banks interacting directly with customers and providing them a seamless banking experience. The country’s neobanking market is expected to witness over three-fold jump to reach USD 11.65 billion (about Rs 92,000 crore) by FY25, a Grant Thornton Bharat report said. Due to the sheer scale of the Indian market, there is a substantial opportunity for neobanking to create value for a large segment of customers, all while leveraging the large talent pool available to create high quality technology driven banking products, the report said. The neobanking market is well positioned to capitalize on the growing digital economics and achieve rapid growth due to the very dynamic local market with significant upside in terms of the revenue generation potential. The Indian neobanking market was valued at USD 3.42 billion as of FY22 and is expected to grow at a three-year Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 50.5 per cent to reach USD 11.65 billion by FY25.
Video is becoming central for brand engagement on Twitter
9 in 10 Indians use Twitter while watching TV or streaming content as they turn to the platform for trailers, highlights and latest news about TV shows. According to a new Twitter report, 79 per cent people in India use Twitter more when they’re watching sports content elsewhere, and what they seek on Twitter is exclusive content, game highlights, interesting stats, and live coverage. 51 per cent on Twitter in India actively search for videos on the service. The top interest-based categories that attract the most viewers are news and current affairs, celebrities, business/finance, educational and sports. Twitter’s report claimed that 64 percent of its audience in India enjoys watching video ads to see what brands have to offer.
Web3 platforms launch Open Metaverse Alliance to overcome interoperability issues
Blockchain-based Metaverse and Web3 platforms have announced the launch of Open Metaverse Alliance for Web3 (OMA3) to address the industry’s interoperability issues. According to the Alliance, its four guiding principles are inclusivity, decentralization and democracy. A joint company was established by Animoca Brands, Alien Worlds, SAND (The Sandbox), Space, Dapper Labs, Upland, and Voxels. According to a recent official announcement, the interoperability issues would be resolved by concentrating on facilitation and suggested cooperation standards among various Web3 stakeholders. OMA3 will be created as a Decentralised Autonomous Organisation (DAO) to build a governance structure that is “transparent and user-centric, ” an official statement said. It added that it will focus its work on several metaverse-related topics, including standards for non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and protocols for transferable identity, gateways between virtual worlds, mapping, and indexing. “We are incredibly excited to announce the Open Metaverse Alliance for Web3. Multiple virtual worlds have come together to solve key challenges of the metaverse and preserve the freedom of information owned by users,” Co-founder of SAND, Sebastian Borget said in a tweet, explaining how the forum anticipates the OMA3 platform’s virtual avatars to reflect the actual characteristics of the users.