Aditya Gupta

My Journey Building TranServ

Starting From the Ground Up

The idea behind TranServ took shape in 2010 in the form of a simple exercise in scoping out the target markets for credit card payments in India. My colleagues and I were astonished to learn that in our country of over a billion, only 3% of consumer transactions were cashless. Clearly, there was a large market (rural India) that had specific needs that weren’t being catered to. A year later, in 2011, we left our cushy jobs at HSBC to see our idea into fruition.

Over the course of the next few months, our painstaking on-ground research forced us to unlearn what we thought we knew and gain fresh perspective. In a country as linguistically and culturally diverse as India, distribution of products and services was key. This was when we decided to set up a Banking Correspondent Network, which by default became our first product offering.

Building Strategic Partnerships

We knew we had to build partnerships with PSU banks to meet our objective. And finally, we found the right partner in Bank of India for a pilot project, and with their partnership we gained a broad audience of 500+ districts, of the then 660+ districts in India. As credit card professionals, our primary objective had always been to set up payment platforms to facilitate cashless digital payments. One of the things we did while setting up our Correspondent Banking Network was to partner with NET1, a leading provider of payment solutions based in South Africa, to launch virtual mobile cards. The encouraging response told us it was time to generate the funds to develop the entire platform.

What had started off as a self-funded experiment was now on the verge of something much bigger, but with our personal funds drying up, we needed to raise money for tech development. After four months of pitching to many indifferent parties, we finalised with Nirvana Venture Advisors and agreed to focus on payment platforms for digital/mobile businesses. What we did right was refusing one very tempting funding prospect, three months into the process, because we knew our objectives and ideologies were not matching with that of the prospective funder. So instead of agreeing to change our principles, we stuck to our guns and had the courage to refuse funding at that vulnerable stage.

 “If you really want to do something, you’ll find a way. If you don’t, you’ll find an excuse.”
— Jim Rohn

With the funding, we started building our team. Most of us being on the business side of things, we were low on tech expertise. So we recruited a team from what was at that time the third largest prepaid card issuing and e-money service provider in Europe. Over the next six months we built a complete and robust card-issuing platform, certified by multiple banks, which offered a bank-grade system outside of banks with the ability to issue VISA/RuPay Cards. We were also able to put in place special features such as rule-based authorizations and Card & POS terminal mapping, which are now a norm but were unique back then in 2013.

We entered into strategic partnerships to launch a few special programs, including medical cards with Medi Assist, India’s largest Third Party Administrator (TPA) and a health and wellness partner for corporates; the first prepaid and debit (Visa) card on the same platform with National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) and Bank of India; and the first RuPay prepaid card for Amul dairy farmers.

Innovating Digital Payment Platforms

We now entered the second phase of fund-raising, which in turn, fueled the third phase of development. We needed the money to scale and build a better and more secure platform. And this time round, we finalised with Faering Capital, a leading Indian private equity firm that supports entrepreneurship, as they were India-focused, understood the banking sector and were patient collaborators. By now, in 2014, e-commerce was booming and digital transactions were starting to become the norm with players like PayTM and Mobikwik.

Since ours was an issuing platform, we had developed a highly scalable digital wallet platform, in addition to our existing card-based platform. So we looked at the problem differently: since payments run on wafer-thin margins, every transaction had to be net positive. As a business, it wasn’t viable to spend 100 rupees to earn 1 rupee, and then hope the customer would make enough payments. The prime motivation for a customer is to complete the purchase; the payment method is just a means to an end. So we decided to empower businesses with digital wallets so their customers could enjoy a seamless checkout process.

“The most valuable businesses of coming decades will be built by entrepreneurs who seek to empower people rather than try to make them obsolete.” ― Peter Thiel

We developed over 100+ APIs for businesses to integrate payments as per their customer flow. We partnered with merchants such as Book My Show, PayU, Ask Me Bazaar, Just Dial and a whole host of startups. We developed a diverse and high-performing omni-channel payment platform that enabled various entities such as Institutions, Merchants, Agents, Banks and Consumers to transact digitally. Our services included wallets, payment gateways, in-app native payment collections, link-based payments to collect money, checkouts for Facebook-based merchants, wallet-linked Visa Card (the first in India) and mVisa integrations (the first wallet company in the world to do so).

Making the Most of Every Opportunity

In 2016, we launched our first consumer-focused proposition and India’s first social wallet UDIO, a payments app enabling users to send and receive money, send gifts, split bills, etc. We were even approached by Micromax for a strategic tie-up that allowed for a native wallet to be embedded into the phone’s hardware, such that the wallet was automatically activated with the phone’s activation.

By this stage, our solution had earned enough traction with partner companies, as a result of which the third round of funding came relatively easily from IDFC Mutual Fund and Micromax, along with our existing investors Faering Capital and Nirvana Ventures, all of which allowed us to continue with our consumer-based expansions.

What happened next was a twist of fate that none of us could have predicted, this being the historic decision to demonetise India’s currency on 8th November 2016. And although, this meant chaos for a lot of people across the country, for us, as a digital payments company, we knew our service had, in one fell swoop, become a necessity. Overnight, we revamped our business plan and conceptualised new products to make the most of this unexpected turn of events.

“The secret of success is to do the common thing uncommonly well.” —  John D. Rockefeller Jr.

Consolidating Our Brand

The year 2017 was a time for consolidation and steady growth. We launched Bharat QR with VISA, a new transformative way to pay and be paid through smartphones on an interoperable platform across payment networks. In 2018 we partnered with Incred, a new age NBFC, and launched an innovative digital lending proposition coupled with our payment platform. This was a first-of-its-kind solution providing credit to customers on the fly for their various purchase-related needs.

Soon after that, while we were in the next phase of fundraising, IndiaBulls Consumer Finance Limited put forward an offer of acquisition.  After careful evaluation of the offer with our investors, we decided it was a great opportunity as this would get things going for the next stage of growth for the company – coupling lending solutions with payment services. Finally, in March 2019, the deal was finalised, enabling us to offer our investors a full cash exit. Apart from meeting our financial goals, this journey left each of us that co-founded the venture with invaluable lessons about entrepreneurship and team-building.

Some key lessons I have learnt, which continue to serve me to this day, are:

1. Once you’re on your own, you lose all the easy respect and recognition that came with your previous employer’s business card and brand; your personal brand is what matters.
2. You might enter the game thinking you have all the answers and will change how everything works, but there’s nothing like beginning with research from ground up!
3. Know your product well and the problem you want to solve.
4. Be confident – you probably know more about the business than the person on the other side.
5. Build a good team around you, such that all boxes are ticked. If not, have a definite plan on how you can fill in the gaps once the money is available.
6. Be transparent – that helps in the long term.
7. Empower your team members and let them perform – they will take you places!
8. Collaborate with investors who share your vision and objectives. Don’t dilute your objectives and lose the DNA of your business just to meet the funding requirements.
9. Speak from your heart.
10. Build a business to EARN money, not to RAISE money.