The payments industry has gone past the point in terms of evolution where one used to optimise transaction processing for reducing costs. Today, it is about how firms use payments data and build an end-to-end platform to help customers and merchants alike. Payments data is being used for enabling service providers to target users based on historical and behavioural information of users. However, a vast amount of opportunity in the offline market is left behind. It is still a challenge to make the most out of the transactional information and build products around it for providing a superior customer experience. 

To understand how Innoviti Payment Solutions is making strides in the payment landscape to deliver effective solutions, we interviewed Gaurav Mehrotra, VP & head of business data solutions, Innoviti Payment Solutions, for our deep dive column. He heads the business data group and SME lending platform. His team is focused on building data-driven solutions to identify revenue opportunities, optimise business operations, and prevent payments fraud. Before joining Innoviti, Gaurav spent 15+ years with Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan building data-driven digital solutions for their Asset and Wealth management business.

The Payment Landscape

“In the payment landscape operational part has been taken care of, now, probably is the time to build on intelligence systems that can be gleaned from the transaction data that is being generated,” begins Mehrotra. The challenge is how one can monetise and use it in business advantage, which will continue to be the trend in the payments landscape. 

Besides, due to the proliferation of various payments platforms, the need for expediting the integration for providing numerous option to purchasers have become paramount. Mehrotra says while it could be easy for big firms to integrate new payment services, small companies struggle to support all payment modes due to lack of resources. Consequently, there is a need for no-code or low code platforms to start accepting payments from numerous channels quickly.

Continuing on the trends, Mehrotra also pinpointed that lending will evolve for both dealer and buyers. He believes understanding the requirement for credit for purchasers at the point of sale will be the gamechanger. Further, Mehrotra said there is a vast disjoint in B2C and B2B payments, resulting in the ineffective pipeline for the money movement. However, he thinks blockchain will play a crucial role in streamlining the money movement while bringing transparency.

Innoviti Journey

Started in 2002 as a product payment processing company, now Innoviti has evolved to add intelligence in payment systems using data. “We are evolving into a platform and enabling all stakeholders to play around; we call it the open platform, says Mehrotra. “About four years ago, we started venturing into value-added services like extensions of credit and SME lending. It is not a standalone platform but is integrated into the core payments pipe that we have. This enables us to generate loans based on transaction history.” And over the years, additional services have evolved to become a standalone business opportunity along with assisting in our central platform.

Today, Innoviti processes over ₹30,000 crores of payments annually, which includes ₹1500 crores of credit.

How Innoviti Is Leveraging AI In Their Solutions

Powered by AI, Innoviti offers numerous products and services that cater to the need of customers and merchants in the payment landscape. The company helps in profiling users by identifying expense patterns and forecast future behaviours using AI. “We ensure there is a feedback loop in our solutions, which makes our products reliable,” adds Mehrotra.

Innoviti assists its users by continuously monitoring and determining problems with the help of machine learning techniques. This enables the firms to proactively take actions even before the client reach out for help. Innoviti’s goal is to use data and serve clients before the clients start feeling the heat of their businesses.

Problems are a part of a business, especially in the payment industry frauds are common, which afflicts the market. Therefore, Innoviti, with its Keystone platform, empowers companies to find potential miss use of cards. Such scams also cause hindrance in compliance, resulting in legal consequences. Consequently, the firm tightens the process around the settlements for providing peace of mind to clients.

Besides, Innoviti brings in transparency by allowing clients to access their data, unearth insights and make informed decisions. “We are also working on NLP based platform that will eliminate the need for BI tools that require expertise to find insights. This will allow users to make queries in English for obtaining information,” unveils Mehrotra.

Unique Value Proposition

Talking about the differentiating factors, Mehrotra said that they have the most superior-tech platform, which he has been backed by the fact that the firm has multiple patents around payment processing and system design. Besides, the firm processes the payment within three seconds while the competitors do it in five to six seconds. 

Further, the company is working on improving the service to solve the hardware problems that its clients witness. Unlike the software problems that can be fixed remotely, issues in payment machines require physical presence. Thus, the firm is trying to enhance its service to fix hardware problems within two hours.

Roadmap

Evolving the product pipeline is one of the many core focus that Innoviti is trying to have a competitive advantage. The idea is to have a plug and play solution, which firms can utilise to integrate services effortlessly. “We are also working on improving our distributed sales and service networks across the country. A robust distributed channel will be vital for us to grow as well as help us serve our clients immediately,” says Mehrotra. Finally, he concluded by saying that the company will continue its efforts on moulding data to further add intelligence in our solutions.