Paytm started with the pilot three-four months back and rolled out 1000 devices. It is looking to roll out another 5000 devices in the market to gain more consumer insights and feedback from the merchants. Dynamic QR+ devices of Paytm is avoiding fake sales with voice notifications for every payment
Paytm has been the pioneer of driving static QR codes in the past five years. There are millions of merchants across the country and the most common sight that you will see today is those static QR codes in small shops. Now while that’s still a way for merchants to accept digital payments and at absolutely no cost. The company has been working on migrating to Dynamic QR codes along with IoT device. Based on the merchant’s feedback who upgraded from a Static QR code to a Dynamic QR code, Paytm started with the pilot three-four months back and rolled out 1000 devices. It is looking to roll out another 5000 devices in the market to gain more consumer insights and feedback from the merchants. With Paytm’s Dynamic QR+ device it can now accept payments from multiple sources like Paytm wallet, cards and all UPI apps. This digital QR device has helped make digital payment acceptance easier.
Speaking to Express Computer, Sachin Ranglani, VP, Paytm shares, “Choosing contactless payment options has all the more accentuated during the pandemic. The most common form being, paying through mobile phones. So, while that’s happening, the merchants are looking at seamless ways to accept digital payment. They’re looking for solutions which not only enrich their experience but also are affordable to accept and offer those mechanisms to consumers to pay through digital ways. So, this is where IoT devices come into play when there’s a strong market need that we can build on.”
“It’s an elementary device, enter the amount, and it shows the Dynamic QR code and has the sound notification. It’s a very simple and easy-to-use device. There’s a calculator like keypad on the top of the device that lets the merchant enter any particular number for accepting a payment. Once you’ve done that, a simple button-press generates the QR code, and that QR code can be used for accepting the payment, and for payment both sound and visual confirmation is there. And essentially that helps a merchant in closing a transaction much easier and in a simplified manner rather than relying on an SMS to be delivered. So that’s the whole concept behind it,” explains Chirag Dang – Senior Manager, Paytm.
What is Dynamic QR+ IoT device
In case of Dynamic QR what happens is, merchants enter the amount on the numeric keypad on the device and basis that a Dynamic QR code gets made. What this does is when consumers scan it, they don’t need to enter the amount, the amount is already entered through the QR device and they just need to pay.
“The reason we did this is because we got feedback from the market with respect to static QR codes wherein consumers, either while entering the amount they would make mistakes or some would mimic a transaction and not actually pay or pay the wrong amount. In this case, the merchant enters the amount and is in control of the amount. The second reason is that once the payment transaction is done the device makes a sound-based notification, which basically states how much amount has been paid by a consumer,” explains Ranglani.
He further adds, “This new innovation allows consumers or merchants who are working during peak-hours they don’t need to man the devices, they can just punch the amount and start serving other consumers while that sound tells you how much the consumer paid. The cost to smaller merchants is zero. We don’t charge anything from the smaller merchants. For the customers also it’s beneficial because they replicate the existing scanning behaviour that they used to and the one that Paytm has been pioneering for the last five years.”
Paytm-AWS partnership
Paytm is working closely with technology provider AWS. AWS has helped Paytm to market these devices quickly. Given the fact that AWS database offers a very scalable and simple IoT SDK, which Paytm has used on the devices.
“AWS offers us the capability to measure the devices deployed in the market. This is extensively done using the services that they offer, which helps in organising and managing the devices. These services also help us control the rollout to these devices in a streamlined manner with building various rules on how we want to roll out the features/upgrades to these devices in the market,” says Ranglani.
AWS IoT Core, which is the core system that connects with these devices that are present in the market. Amazon CloudWatch and AWS CloudSearch which helps monitor any occurrence on any of these devices while they’re out in the market and a merchant is using it. “These services, we hope, will also help us optimise our offerings going forward and will take care of any merchant-specific issue or a customer pain point,” concludes Ranglani.