Here's How These Entrepreneurs Swiped Away the Payment Problems in India Mswipe, the mobile point-of-sale solutions company, has led the way for entrepreneurled businesses in disrupting the merchant side of the payment ecosystem.

MANISH PATEL (51), FOUNDER AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, MSWIPE TECHNOLOGIES

Mswipe, the mobile point-of-sale solutions company, has led the way for entrepreneur led businesses in disrupting the merchant side of the payment ecosystem. Founded by Manish Patel in 2012, it is also among the few Indian technology companies backed by Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin's B Capital. The problem for small merchants in India has been of their inability to accept card-based electronic payments even as banks being the natural custodians in the payment business had failed to innovate to solve that problem. "I don't blame banks as they aren't technology companies. So they could never address this problem. Whether it was wireless terminals and terminals customized for India, the space was open for disruption and we did that," says Patel. While the new payment technologies have given options for users and merchants to choose from in payment acceptance such as UPI, Aadhaar, wallet etc., the problem of ensuring frictionless payments will take a long time in smoothening out. So the bottom line remains how a company enables frictionless transfer of money from one individual to another or one individual to a business or vice versa. That's the reason why Patel sees the new age solutions to be any different than cards. "Card is the most frictionless payment method and I don't think the new mobile-based payment channels are less frictionless than cards. They are just an additional learning curve for users.

THE PAY OFF

LAUNCH: August 2012 in Mumbai

MERCHANTS: 3 lakh; 15k new merchants monthly

TRANSACTION: Rs 1,000 crore worth transactions processed

HEADCOUNT: 3,000