Shifting Gears

Travel-focussed payment solutions firm PayMate hit a roadblock post Covid-19, but focus on other areas such as discount invoicing helped in damage control

- APRAJITA SHARMA

AJAY ADISESHANN,

Founder & CEO,Paymate

120 Client additions in 2020 from 40 pre-Covid

Largely operating in the travel segment, Covid-19 came as a blow to payment solutions platform PayMate. With a steep fall in business despite a pick-up in digital payments across the country, the B2B payments player shifted gears immediately. The company expanded its reach across sectors such as manufacturing, FMCG, logistics, pharma and BFSI. Marquee names such as Marico, Kansai Nerolac, Amul and SBI Card came on-board. From 40 enterprises preCovid, the number increased to 120. Added to the supplier and distributor network, the client figure is currently above 55,000.

“We had a great pipeline of customers to come on-board pre-Covid, but the pandemic disrupted it all. There was obviously a steep fall, but we soldiered on. Luckily, big names came on-board and we bounced back quite remarkably despite travel literally nosediving. Other verticals more than adequately compensated for it. Today we are at 2.5 times our pre-Covid numbers despite the June quarter remaining flat for us,” says Ajay Adiseshann, Founder & CEO, PayMate.

Automating SMEs

The firm started out in 2006 to facilitate payments via mobile phones in the B2C segment. It pivoted its business model in 2011 to offer payment solutions to big enterprises and linked SMEs on the payables and receivables sides. Enterprise client Redington India says PayMate has helped them manage their idle cash better. “PayMate has helped Redington in effectively managing the cash in terms of reducing the idle cash lying in the current accounts, thereby creating additional cash inflows,” says Varun Varada, Treasury Head, Redington India.