Startup eyes Aadhaar-based payment for money transfer

PANAJI: A Goan startup plans to disrupt the utility services payment sector. But rather than focus on end users, they are targeting micro-retailers and the B2B market. Based at Sanquelim, MinksRecharge is venturing into Aadhaar Enabled Payment Systems (AEPS) and is already in talks with Reserve Bank of India's Bharat Bill Payment System ( BBPS).

Just like Freecharge, Paytm and other online recharge portals, MinksRecharge makes it easy to recharge mobile talktime and data plans, but caters to micro retailers instead of end-users.

The startup, which is in its second year, started with just 20 retailers in North Goa. Today it has a presence in Goa and Maharashtra with more than 1,500 retailers processing more than 12,000 transactions per day, says chief executive officer of MinksRecharge, Sanket Shendure.

"We plan to expand to more than 10,000 retailers by entering into the payment solutions categories like MPOS (mobile point of sale) and AEPS in the next three months," says Shendure.

He explains that soon, telecom micro-retailers will be able to process and pay for mobile recharges using nothing more than their Aadhar card number. Mobile recharge involves walking to the nearest telecom retailer, handing over cash and walking away. The retailer then processes the recharge using the Local Area Payment Unit, ( LAPU recharging sim) given by each telecom operator.

"90% of retailers in tier 2, tier 3 cities and rural areas are still using the conventional method of LAPU. So, the Vodafone balance can't be used to recharge Airtel numbers and vice-versa," says Sanket, who co-founded the startup with cousin Sanmati Shendure and Suraj Rana.

Sanket was among the 33 students selected by Startup Village, out of 40 lakh engineering and MBA students, to interact with global investors at Silicon Valley Bank. The startup, with eight employees, was incubated by Kochi's Startup Village.