BharatPe said that in the previous year, it has increased the reach of its POS business (BharatSwipe) by 25X to 250+ cities. The firm has deployed over 1.25 lakh BharatSwipe machines across offline retailers since launching its POS business in the second half of 2020. BharatPe has made history as the fastest-ever scale-up on POS business in India, according to a media statement released today. Over the previous 12 months, BharatPe, India’s No. 3 private POS player, has seen a 200 percent increase in the annualised transaction value from its POS business.
BharatSwipe currently accounts for nearly a quarter of the company’s total payments Transaction Processed Value (TPV). The amazing increase may be ascribed to the company’s POS business expanding into non-metro locations, with more than half of BharatSwipe devices placed in tier 2/tier 3 towns and cities since 2021. Small merchants and retailers have uniformly accepted BharatSwipe in a variety of sectors, including groceries, food & beverage, electronics, and durables, among others.
Speaking about the aggressive expansion, Suhail Sameer, CEO, BharatPe, said “BharatSwipe has been the biggest growth story in India’s POS industry- from making a humble beginning with 10 cities in the middle of COVID in 2020 to processing US $4 bn payments annually today. Over the course of last year, we have witnessed multi-fold growth in our POS business, led by our aggressive expansion plans in tier-2, 3 and 4 towns and cities. We realized that many merchants in the smaller cities have not used a POS machine ever, owing to the traditional high rentals associated with POS and hence, took it as an opportunity to push our zero-rental POS machines. We were able to take POS to several small merchants in last-mile areas with low digital penetration like Alappuzha, Azamgarh and Chalisgaon. In fact, over 60% of our merchants are first time POS users.”
Added Suhail, “The transition to digital payments offers a range of benefits for the merchants and the economy at large- including customer delight in the times of pandemic, a better record of transactions and most importantly, access to credit. The addition of POS enables us to further assess the financial strength of a merchant from his daily transactions and thus, facilitate business loans as per the merchant’s eligibility, in partnership with NBFCs.”
BharatSwipe is India’s first zero-rent card acceptance machine, allowing retailers to avoid transaction costs. BharatSwipe, which was launched in the middle of COVID in 2020, attracted a lot of attention for its revolutionary business concept. Merchants may use BharatSwipe to produce tangible receipts for both QR transactions and BharatPe UPI QR transactions. BharatPe and Axis Bank formed a strategic alliance in August of last year. As part of the agreement, Axis Bank became the acquiring bank for BharatPe’s point of sale (POS) service, BharatSwipe, which allows merchants affiliated with BharatPe to take credit and debit cards. With the goal of improving the customer experience on its POS devices, BharatPe will continue to expand strategic alliances with banks, financial institutions, and brands.
By March 2023, the business hopes to have reached a TPV of US $30 billion on QR and Swipe payments.
