UPI to revolutionise India; great opportunity for co:RS Software

The Reserve Bank of India on April 11 launched the Unified Payment Interface (UPI).The launch of UPI in India will be a great opportunity for the company that will revolutionise India, said Rajnit Jain, CMD of RS Software in an interview to CNBC-TV18. The company, which built the UPI software, has been focusing on electronic payments for the last twenty years.The company will continue to build various applications for the software, said Jain, adding that there are several more features in the works for UPI — whether it is for disputes, whether it is for chargebacks or for reverse transactions.The company has already accrued revenues of around Rs 4 crore from this project, he said.According to Jain, the company's focus in India is very specialised and strategic. Later this year, the company plans to launch its own digitial payment platform, he said. “There is no company in India, which has the kind of experience we have in building this kind (UPI) of software,” said Jain.
The UPI will make money transfers simple. The platform is inter-operable across different banks and will allow instant payments.Below is the transcript of Rajnit Jain’s interview with Latha Venkatesh and Reema Tendulkar on CNBC-TV18. Latha: What is for you in it – this software? Does it improve your revenues or margins in a big way? A: Our software is focused on electronic payments for about 20 years now. We specialise in building core in-country payment infrastructures. We have been working with major payment networks. So for us, this is a great opportunity to build the basic – and it is not supply of software, it is actually the build of software. We built it right from design and that is a product with Unified Payment Interface (UPI) which is now launched this morning. And we believe this is the beginning to revolutionise India and for our opportunity, obviously is it is a long-term continuing to build various applications. For instance, when we first started working with a major payment network, that software was good for about 500 transactions per second. Today, it has tested for 56,000 transactions per second. We see a similar revolution happening with the UPI, for India in a much shorter span of time. Latha: Our colleague was just speaking with Shikha Sharma of Axis and she was saying that one of the problems that is either yet to be resolved or should not occur is reversing a payment that has not gone through. Is this something your software has already tackled? Are you anywhere in the picture or should we be asking AP Hota this question? A: Let me tell you that this is not the only feature. There are several more features which are in the works for the UPI software. As you probably may know, your viewers as well, that in a software, once it is launched, it is the user experience which comes back as a feed and that is what enhances a software for the next version. So, there are multiple features which are in the build right now and they will continue to be built over the patch of time, whether it is for disputes, whether it is for charge back or whether it is for being reversed transactions. Reema: If you could tell us what has been the revenue which has already accrued to you on the back of this particular software? A: This is, at the ground level right now and the revenues to this are in the range of about Rs four crore and India for us is a market which is really doing strategic projects like building core infrastructure, our major focus as a company is really our global marketplace, the US and Europe primarily. Reema: So, Rs four crore is the total revenue that has accrued to you already from these payment solutions? A: That is correct. Latha: Is that it or you will get more? A: We certainly would like to get more and we are on the book to continue working and building more capabilities. When we first started to give you a perspective, we earned maybe from major payment network USD 200,000 dollars for the work that we did. Primarily, we took that USD 50 million worth of work. Latha: On the basis of this, are you likely to get more orders from anybody else in India? A: Our focus in India is very specialised and strategic. We are not going after every part of the market. In fact, later this year, we will be launching our own digital payment platform and we believe that there is a lot of work to be done in India. We are going to be very selective about it. Reema: What is the competition like in providing this particular software? A: To us, there is no company in India which has the kind of experience of building this kind of software that we do.