The Great Leveller

ONDC was launched with the aim to democratise the e-commerce market and level the playing field for small businesses. Despite challenges, this initiative promises to bring down the entry barrier in the space

- PALAK AGARWAL

DIGITAL COMMERCE, RIGHT now, is a space dominated by a few major players. Hence, to revolutionise e-commerce, the Government of India, in December 2021, launched the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC). Designed to promote open networks using open-source methodology, open specifications, and open network protocols, ONDC is independent of any specific platform. The goal was to democratise digital commerce, enabling small retailers and businesses to participate in online marketplaces.

“Every product or service that can be catalogued should be available on this network,” T. Koshy, MD and CEO of ONDC, tells Business Today. He emphasises the transformative potential of the platform. “In the current world, when you join a platform, you are visible only to users of that platform. If you want to be visible to customers on multiple platforms, you have to manually make yourself visible on each one,” he adds. Calling it a ground-breaking concept, Koshy says that what is significant with ONDC is that once one makes themselves visible on the network, any buyer using any buyer application can see them.

ONDC aims to replicate the success of the Unified Payments Interface (UPI). With ONDC, India will be the first country to integrate micro to small businesses into the digital economy at a low cost, reducing the entry barrier.

And in a short period of time, ONDC has onboarded prominent players like Ola, Meesho, Khojle. com, Domino’s, and Namma Yatri, among others, either through the seller or the buyer side.

The platform has now forayed into the fintech space, facilitating fully digital and paperless loans in six minutes. The new offering is integrated with nine buyer applications (also known as lending service providers) and three lenders, marking a significant milestone in its mission to enhance accessibility and efficiency in credit services.