PayNearby’s various product offerings have seen growth including Unified Payments Interface (UPI), cash withdrawal, MSME credit, utility payments, cash management, ancillary e-commerce and others. These were availed by citizens through local retail counters such as grocery stores, mobile recharge stores, medical shops, Customer Service Centers (CSPs), travel agents, etc.
As per the report, Unified Payments Interface (UPI) transactions witnessed a massive growth of 650% and 500% in value and volume at PayNearby retail counters, representing the growing adoption of UPI beyond Tier II areas in the country. It also underlines the important role of UPI in promoting digital financial inclusion.
The information was shared as part of the second edition of the all-India report titled ‘Retail-o-nomics’ released by PayNearby. The report has been prepared on the basis of transactions at over one million retail touchpoints across the country. The report’s findings are based on business data collected during the same period from January to October 2022 as compared to 2021.
In a significant insight, the report states that the mPOS business has seen a growth of over 100% along with a growth of over 25% in the demand for micro ATMs and mPOS devices. The rise in demand for digital payment options at retail outlets underlines the critical role played by small retail stores in bridging the infrastructure gap and driving last-mile financial inclusion.
Cash withdrawal business through micro ATMs and AEPS, which continues to be one of the key income drivers for semi-urban and rural digital counters, has seen an overall growth of 8% in value and 9% in volume, respectively. Cash withdrawals through Micro ATMs have seen a growth of 25% in value and 28% in volume as compared to the same period last year. This growth figure reflects the growing role played by this portable digital device in ensuring easy access to bank accounts, while helping merchants use cash-at-store more effectively and increase their earnings. However, there has been a slight decline in the average cash withdrawals per transaction from 2620 in 2021 2595 in 2022.
According to the report, semi-urban and rural India were equal participants in this double-digit growth in assisted financial transactions, and adoption rates were comparable between urban and rural under-served demographics.
Report indicates rapid growth in cash collection business (including EMIs) with monthly average of over 200% 1400 crore, indicating demand for lending and other financing solutions has returned to pre-pandemic levels. Most cash collection processes saw a surge in demand, including collections from logistics and e-commerce companies, which saw a jump of over 89% in volumes. Retail stores also saw a massive 370% increase in insurance premiums and a 365% increase in customers during the survey period.
Anand Kumar Bajaj, MD & CEO, PayNearby said, “The findings of the report are inspiring and emphasize the fact that India is ready to fight shoulder to shoulder with India. India is aspirational, and the growing demand for green shoot services such as assisted commerce, OTT subscriptions, micro-lending, attests to our commitment to making these services easily available at nearby stores.
we have served close 70,000 crore digital services and steady growth of cash withdrawal business in the first 10 months of this calendar year, as well as rapid adoption of some of these green shoot services, indicate a steady recovery in our economy after the devastating impact of the pandemic. , We will continue to strengthen our efforts to simplify high-end technology to democratize the majority of services and make them available to all through our well-established Delivery-as-a-Service network.”
Subscription based digital services like OTT, online education, online gaming have also seen positive growth. Despite the small numbers, it validates a latent demand for such services and the growing affinity for digital products in post-pandemic India.
Bill payment service at local stores saw a 12% increase in value and 10% in volume. There has been an increase of 18 per cent in mobile recharge as compared to last year. This festive season witnessed an 8% growth in flight bookings and 6% growth in rail bookings this festive season as compared to the same period last year, mainly driven by travel to visit friends and family and to their natives for the festival Is. The report also highlights an increase of 88% in the issuance of PAN cards quarter on quarter. All these indicate that the local Kirana store has evolved into a multi-utility point for consumers to meet most of their financial and digital needs.
Micro-credit to MSMEs also saw a growth of 263% during this period; This segment indicates a huge latent demand for viable credit that needs to be addressed for India to transition to the next phase of development.
In another interesting observation, around 32% of banking transactions were registered during non-banking hours between 6.00 PM to 12.00 AM. This underlines the important role retail outlets play in meeting the banking and digital needs of the masses.
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