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Imagine making digital payments without internet or a smartphone. Can you?
Enter voice-based payments and you can very well transact via feature phones. Soundwave-based payments company ToneTag is all set to launch voice-based UPI-linked payments pan-India by early September. The voice-based technology will allow payments without a smartphone or internet connectivity.
“The idea is to encourage the masses to adopt digital payments and methods in urban and rural India alike. With the NPCI and the RBI we are working on financial inclusion. The project has matured now. We have approvals to enable UPI payments via our soundwave-based software. We are working with a couple of banks to launch it pan-India. We will launch it hopefully by first week of September,” says Kumar Abhishek, CEO & Founder, ToneTag.
“Our solution will help in direct benefit transfers by the government to beneficiaries and making payments to nearby merchants. We shall be working with cooperatives to reach out to 50,000 villages and districts,” he adds.
Pay the number
Explaining further he says that merchants usually have a QR code and a phone number. “Tech-savvy people can make payments via smart phone and QR code, but if you are uncomfortable, you can simply dial in a number and say that pay Rs 50 to the phone number that is mentioned below the QR Code. This is a secure process that gives users comfort that they are speaking only then the transaction is happening,” he says.
ToneTag already has a voice-based payment solution linked to smartphones. It has partnered with Amazon to enable peer-to-peer payments through the Amazon pay “Near me” feature. This option allows users to transfer money over short distances without the need to exchange UPI Id or contact numbers. “If you visit a restaurant which is associated with us, you can get the menu on your phone. You may place your order from the phone itself by a voice command. The bill will appear on phone screen and you can pay with your Amazon balance. You don’t have to stand in queues to place your order and make payments,” explains Kumar.
More services
Once the voice-based payments pick up, one can layer on more services to work towards financial literacy. “Payments are the first stepping stone towards financial literacy. The way online payments picked and fintech players moved to offering other financial services, voice-based payments may see a similar future. One can layer on products and value-add services such as credit cards, mutual funds and insurance. For example, there could be a voice command saying ‘are you insured? If not, here are insurance options for you.’ Such evolution is quite possible with voice-based technology,” says Shilpa Mankar Ahluwalia, Head, FinTech, Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co.
The concept of soundwave payments is rich and much-needed in our country where most people lack financial literacy and are without smartphones and internet connectivity. “While NPCI is an established platform to make small ticket payments, soundwave technology needs infrastructure to scale up. I know a couple of firms that had tried it before. For example, making payments in trains where internet connectivity is iffy. But there are no updates on how far they have progressed.”
Ahluwalia says the interface has to be user-friendly for wider adoption. Besides, it must support different languages.