Spice Money: Industry Monitoring 10 April 2019
- Priyanka Kanodia
- Apr 10, 2019
- 4 min read
Spice Money
Industry News
Digital gold accounts cross 80 million, more than twice demat accounts
Publication- Business Standard
Edition- Online
Date- 10 April, 2019
Digital gold accounts in the country have risen significantly, taking the customer base past the 80 million mark by March end. This is more than twice the total number of demat accounts in the country. The two national depositories had 35 million demat accounts between them at the end of 2018 and are estimated to have 40 million by end of 2019. Demat of shares was first launched in 1997. While first digital gold account was launched some fifteen years later in 2012-13. Digital gold or gold purchased online on various platforms, including PayTm or Google Pay, and stored in online accounts, has seen a surge the past one year. In the past two years PayTm, a wallet and SafeGold, (a brand with Digital Gold, a Joint Venture between the Private Equity firm Invent Capital and the World Gold Council} are offering the precious metal in digital form.
Augmont, an integrated entity engaged in everything -- from refining of gold ore to retailing of pure gold -- started offering digital gold or Digi Gold in 2012. Other companies offering digital gold account services include Motilal Oswal, PhonePe and Google Pay. Google Pay’s entry, in fact, is seen as a big boost to this segment, given its wide reach, says one industry official. Industry estimates 8-9 tonnes of gold is sold a year on these platforms and some tonnes are delivered. Augmont has introduced new-age products like gold on EMI with leading assisted e-commerce players. It delivers gold coins of denomination as low as 100 milligram or 0.1 gram. Augmont EMI products are available in 500,000 assisted e-commerce centres including Vakrangee, Weizmann, Ebix Cash, Quicksun Tech, among others, where villagers and daily income earners can visit and buy gold, silver coins or jewellery up to 10 grams on EMIs.
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WhatsApp’s Paytm-rival UPI-based payments service may take more time to launch
Publication- The Financial Express
Edition- Online
Date- 10 April, 2019
It seems that WhatsApp will have to wait a little longer for the full-scale commercial launch of its BHIM UPI-compliant payment service, the process for which began over three years ago in 2016. The instant messaging application is likely to meet the requirement of storing consumers payment data in India by June-July this year and then approach the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for a fresh approval.
At present, the Facebook-owned company is running a pilot for the service, WhatsApp Payments, with close to 1 million users. Google Pay leads the payment service providers market in India followed by Paytm, PhonePe, BHIM app and Axis Pay.
Sources said WhatsApp will approach the banking regulator around July after it makes arrangements for storing and processing payments service data in India. Last month, the RBI, in an affidavit to the Supreme Court, said that WhatsApp has not met data localisation requirement. “RBI has been following up with NPCI relating to the status of compliance by WhatsApp with respect to the circular. As informed by NPCI vide letter dated November 16, 2018 and email dated February 5, 2019, WhatsApp is non-compliant with the RBI circular,” it informed.
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South Korean VC firm leads Series A round in payments gateway firm Cashfree
Publication- VC Circle
Edition- Online
Date- 10 April, 2019
Bengaluru-based payment gateway startup Cashfree has raised $5.5 million (Rs 38 crore at current exchange rates) in its Series A funding round led by South Korean venture capital firm Smilegate Investment, a company statement said. Existing investor Y Combinator, a California-based startup accelerator also participated in the round. George Osborne, former British finance minister, and Vellayan Subbiah, former managing director of non-banking finance company Cholamandalam Investment also put in money, the statement added.
The company will use the capital to expand its team and to distribute its API banking platform, the statement said. Cashfree’s application programming interface banking platform lets businesses send money round-the-clock and instantly to bank accounts using the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and credit and debit cards. This prevents companies from uploading complicated files on their corporate banking portals. “We have been growing 25% every month for the last 12 months. Our API banking platform connects any organisation’s software product or enterprise resource planning to the banking system for automated transactions,” said Akash Sinha, co-founder and chief executive officer of Cashfree.
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Payment gateway Cashfree raises $5.5 Mn Series A round
Publication- EN Trackr
Edition- Online
Date- 10 April, 2019
Y Combinator-backed payment gateway company Cashfree has raised $5.5 million in Series A round led by South Korean venture capital firm Smilegate Investments. The Silicon Valley-based accelerator and seed investor in Cashfree also participated in the round while George Osborne and Vellayan Subbiah invested in their personal capacity. The Bengaluru-based startup founded by Akash Sinha and Reeju Datta will use the funds for expanding the team from 45 to 100 and distribution of its API Banking platform Payouts. Currently, Cashfree is used by more than 12,000 businesses for vendor payouts, wage payouts, bulk refunds, expense reimbursements, loyalty & rewards. Cashfree runs four products that offer easy to integrate payment gateway that supports instant refunds, a split payment solution for marketplaces, a Bank Account Verification API and Auto Collect — a virtual account solution to match inbound payments to customers. Using Cashfree’s Payouts API, money can be moved even on bank holidays and to modes not supported otherwise by banks such as direct payment to a debit card, Paytm wallet, and UPI. The startup is currently processing around $4.5 billion at an annualized run rate and it is growing 25 per cent month-on-month.
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