What is ‘payin2’ ?

How do I get myself enrolled in payin2 program ?

How do we identify participating merchants ?

How would my customers know that they can now pay through payin2 network?

How exactly does the payment process work at the merchant’s outlet ?

I am a start-up. How do I acquire new customers through your retailers?

What is a keyword ?

How would the customer know that the payment has been done towards his/her account ?

What is the maximum amount that can be accepted by the merchant from a customer ?

What are the charges for using this service from payin2 ?

Why are your charges more than a cash card such as ITZcash or Oxicash?

What is ‘payin2’ ?

Payin2 is a new initiative from team Paytronic - the leading distributor and reload network for prepaid products in India. Startups can utilise our network of "Recharge Points" in India (roughly 30,000 in number) to acquire new customers or recharge their customer accounts. E.g. A gaming website can accept payments for their customers' account through our network, wherein the end customer goes to any of the merchants in our network and pays cash to the shopkeeper. He gets an instant SMS informing him about the new balance in his account and walks out!! By partnering with us, you do away with the task of setting up own retail channel to accept payments, avoid major capital expenditure required in building and managing the network and improve customer satisfaction and revenues by providing them a large number of shops where they can make payments.

On a typical business day, 200 new shopkeepers choose to become "Recharge Points". At the moment we offer the top-up capability to customers of about 20 large mobile and DTH operators companies licensed to operate in India under the brand name "Recharge Point". Payin2 is our initiative to broaden the scope of payments collected to startups.

How do I get myself enrolled in payin2 program ?

We want to keep the registration process as simple as possible. You would be required to fill in some details about yourself and your company on the pre-register page. These are then analyzed by the paytronic team. Once approved, we will send you a link through which you can register yourself. That is it and then you are ready to accept payments from your customers through our network of merchants.

How do we identify participating merchants ?

Usually, our merchants can be identified by the "Recharge Point" logo on a banner or poster outside their shop. Sometimes we have network partners which are larger brands and so you will see their brands and signage in addition to our brand. Post registration, you will see a "Outlet Locator" in your login through which you can search through our outlet base and see their logos/ identifying marks as well as those of the network partners that we may be partnered with. In general your users will also see a "Recharge Point" banner or logo at the participating outlet. You may also integrate the outlet locator with your website and so the user can search by Pin Code or area and get a list of "Recharge Points" close to his home, office or his frequented routes. Some typical Recharge Points photographs are below

How would my customers know that they can now pay through payin2 network?

You will have to communicate to your customers about this new mode of payment through your website, the payment screen or else by direct email and SMS.

How exactly does the payment process work at the merchant’s outlet ?

Customer approaches the merchant for payment. He/she then informs the merchant about the format of the SMS to be sent for payment.
The format looks like this - <keyword>  <amount>  <customer-id/customer mobile no>
Where in
<keyword> is a keyword which the business/company has specified during registration. For eg. Gogo technologies might specify gogo as their keyword for payin2. The keyword differentiates the different companies which have tied up for payin2 services.
<amount> is the amount paid by the customer
<customerid/customer mobile no> is some kind of identification no which is used by the business or it could be customer’s mobile no in which case a sms will be sent to the customer about the status of the payment. So a typical SMS for Gogo technologies might look like:
Gogo 100 9987079371
The merchant will send this SMS to our transaction processing server, which then sends the status (success/failure) back to the merchant and confirms the same to the customer by SMS (in case customer’s mobile no was given). You can also confirm to your customer by email if you have the same.

I am a start-up. How do I acquire new customers through your retailers?

This is a new feature we are launching shortly. You can communicate directly with our merchants and educate them about your product and it's benefits. They can then sell the same to end customers walking into their outlets. The merchant performs the transaction as per our procedure and the customer gets an activation code or else a default username and password which he can use to login. You can implement a mandatory password change on first login to help him with a better user experience.

What is a keyword ?

During registration process, we ask the company/business to enter a keyword which will uniquely identify them on our systems. This keyword is then used for payment at any of the merchant on our network. Your end customers have to be informed about the keyword and the exact format of SMS through which the payment can be made at the merchant outlet. Refer to the answer above for more details on how the payment is done at the merchant outlet.

How would the customer know that the payment has been done towards his/her account ?

We recommend using the customer’s mobile no in the SMS. This will enable us to send him/her status of the payment. On the other hand if you want to use customer’s identification number in the SMS and if you have any other way of informing your customer about the status of payment, that is also an acceptable solution. During registration you will have to define the parameters in the SMS format:

What is the maximum amount that can be accepted by the merchant from a customer ?

Customer can pay maximum of Rs. 5000 per day to a merchant.

What are the charges for using this service from payin2 ?

At the moment and till the 1st of September 2009, we are in a consultative process. As such we have decided to deduct 10% of amounts collected before making payment to you. Of this, 5% is given to our shopkeepers and 5% is shared between us and our distributors. We are conscious that you may feel that this is expensive esp. in contrast to payment gateways. However, we must point out that the cost of physical cash collection is tremendous and we want to ensure that our distributors, shopkeepers and ourselves make a reasonable amount of money to ensure our businesses are viable. We have waived all set-up charges (something that all credit card payment gateways charge today) and have kept a 3% additional deduction to account for the additional cost of physical cash collection on a national basis. We look for your suggestions and feedback on our forums and are also collecting feedback from our shopkeepers and distributors. Based on the same, we will announce our final commercials on or before 1st August 2009 which will come into effect only from 1st September 2009. Let's work together to make this a success.

Why are your charges more than a cash card such as ITZcash or Oxicash?

ITZcash or Oxicash are cash cards where the end user goes out and purchases a cash card and there is an inherent assumption that a user who comes to your website is already carrying such an instrument with adequate balance - this assumption is very suspect as the penetration of such instruments is very low irrespective of claims made by interested parties. The business models of such companies is a combination of breakage (i.e. unutilised money lying in user accounts after transactions), users fees (expiry of funds or maintenance fees), float (interest income on dormant end user funds which they don't pay interest on) which are used to setoff the high costs of distribution and brand building. Till recently these companies were unregulated. The Reserve Bank of India has recently issued guidelines for the issuance of prepaid instruments bringing these players into the regulated domain. We feel you know your customers best and they trust you. It is much better for them to go and put money into your account as opposed to putting money in our account. This is the primary way in which we are different. Secondly, our shopkeepers are a a part of our proposition. They are an active sales channel for you to expand your business across the nation. This is a service that cannot be provided by other cash card companies.

If the answers given above do not solve your probelms, please dont hesitate to contact us.