True success is felt in Solving for Problems and that’s what we have always done at Pine Labs.
One just needs to look around for opportunities to find problems, solve them, and make a significant impact in the lives of the people around us.
That reminds me of the iconic TVC by Apple introducing the original Macintosh in 1984 which had this memorable line:
“On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like 1984.”
Rest as we all know is history. The world of personal computing changed significantly after that.
On January 27th 2021, we were experiencing a similar feeling at Pine Labs when we made the announcement around the launch of Pine Labs AllTap app which has the potential to dramatically accelerate the adoption of digital payments in India, the land of a billion plus nation.
In a country which is the fastest growing and second-largest smartphone market in the world, there is absolutely no excuse to not accelerate the pace of financial inclusion. Being a fintech major, at Pine Labs we do realize the important role we play here in making this possible.
Pine Labs AllTap will enable digital payments acceptance for the millions of micro and small-scale merchants, street traders, home entrepreneurs, gig-economy workers, and several other solopreneurs. And guess what! Just through the power of their smartphones. Yes, they all can now accept ‘tap and pay’ contactless card payments on their NFC-enabled smartphone device without the need of any additional hardware. And there’s ‘One more thing’, the app is free to use and comes with a fully digital and quick onboarding experience for the user.
Imagine life changing dramatically for the millions of micro and small merchants in India who were so far unconnected with ongoing digital payments revolution in the country.
Imagine how a small hawker trying to make ends meet by selling in the hustle and bustle of the Mumbai local trains can quickly accept payments using a smartphone. Such fast-paced mobility environment where you cannot place a QR code to accept digital payments from passengers is ideal for a “chutta-free” approach of quickly accepting small amounts of payments courtesy AllTap.
Imagine how the AllTap app can empower the over 886 million debit card users that exist in the country and enable them to quickly checkout and make contactless payments using ‘tap and pay’ on the merchant’s smartphone for transactions up to INR 5,000.
Imagine a kirana store owner, somewhere in the hinterlands, now just flashing the smartphone to collect card payments using just the mobile phone, minus the whole shebang of the hardware setup and more importantly the cost associated with it.
The possibilities are endless!
With Pine Labs AllTap, we are knocking off one of the biggest barriers to adoption of digital payments in India which has always been the cost factor. It was time to address the Elephant in the Room, and after hearing a lot of feedback from this critical segment of the society we are doing just that.
Watch this video where business journalist Megha Vishwanath of CNBC TV-18 speaks with Pine Labs CEO Amrish Rau, Visa’s T R Ramachandran and Samsung’s Mohandeep Singh on the launch of Pine Labs AllTap and its impact on digital payment adoption in India.
Pine Labs AllTap app is available here: https://bit.ly/2ZluFwU
(The author of this article is Sunil Param, Head of Content and Communications at Pine Labs. Views expressed in this article are that of the author.)
