This Founder Has Built Full-Stack Supply Chain Payments Solutions for SMEs PayMate offers a suit of tech services to its clients to solve their end-to-end supply chain payments woes
By Shipra Singh
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Ajay Adiseshann launched PayMate in 2006 as a consumer facing mobile payments platform. However, his ambitious goal to digitise payments was not limited to the consumer space. He wanted to solve the inefficiencies in payables and receivables in the business-to-business (B2B) area as well.
"Over time, we started getting more use cases from businesses to streamline their payables and receivables," said founder and CEO Adiseshann.
As Adiseshann dug deeper, he was quick to recognise that the existing payments and adjacent areas for B2B were not only cumbersome and clunky but were causing friction and inefficiencies that would often lock up the working capital and in turn, affect cash flows, which is the lifeblood for small businesses.
In his mission in solving all the major pain points plaguing the B2B payments space, Adiseshann and his company's team has built PayMate into a full-stack supply chain payments automation tools platform.
End-to-End Supply Chain Solutions for Businesses
PayMate offers a suit of tech services to its clients to solve their end-to-end supply chain payments woes. Businesses can easily digitise their payables through commercial cards and even directly accept payments into their bank accounts using PayMate's e-invoicing feature.
"An internal approval workflow reduces the need to use any paper or other resources and hence, automation of all these tasks eliminates fraudulent transactions, risks and human errors," said Adiseshann.
Further, the platform's GST and Direct Tax payment automation feature allows businesses to make bulk payments using commercial credit cards towards challans generated on the GST portal across multiple GSTINs. PayMate also helps Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in meeting their capital needs in two ways, Adiseshann explained.
"Buyers (large enterprises) using the PayMate platform can seek discounts on select invoices from their suppliers, towards which early payments can be made. This gives them an option to earn higher returns on their idle surplus funds; for e.g. - if the buyer is earning an annualized return of up to 6 per cent on idle funds (that are invested), now can earn up to 20 per cent annually simply by making early payments towards discounted supplier invoices. These payments are made using bank issued commercial cards, thereby giving suppliers working capital and sustainability."
Through the second method, suppliers can secure working capital through the PayMate platform via its NBFC partners.
"The PayMate platform has been designed to be a single window for buyers and suppliers to communicate with each other and digitally enhance all tasks starting from procurement to payments," said Adiseshann.
Mumbai-headquartered PayMate claims to have a client base of over 200 large and mid-market corporates and 80,000 of their suppliers and distributors in India and Middle East.
On being asked what type of impact has PayMate's tech solutions made so far, Adiseshann pointed out quite a many. For suppliers, the platform reduces costs of accounts payable and receivable functions, improves visibility of payments to facilitate better transparency for compliance, eases supplier management with greater control and flexibility and allows maintenance and extension of DPO/DSO due to utilization of commercial credit cards.
As for SMEs, the platform enables immediate supplier payment on approval to invoice request, saves cost of non-productive payment chasing activity and provides real-time tracking as well as reduces reliance on other sources of collateral-based credit options through invoice discount and supply chain finance options.
Adiseshann and the team are eyeing global expansion in the coming years. They have already commenced the company's global expansion starting in UAE and are planning to expand further into the rest of the Gulf Cooperation Council this year followed by further expansion into Central Europe Middle East and Africa (CEMEA).
"The focus currently is to expand into the gulf countries. In the UAE, we have recently rolled out our product in May and went live with the first client. We have set up subsidiaries, both in the UAE and in Saudi Arabia, and will subsequently go to Oman, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain. In the first year of operation, PayMate is aiming at 10-15 per cent of volume contribution via the Middle East market. The aim is to replicate the Indian model in CEMEA. We have started with automating the account payables and receivables in UAE and will expand with other offerings shortly," said Adiseshann.
