PINE LABS MAKING DIGITAL PAYMENTS EASIER AND SAFER

SANJEEV KUMAR
CTO, Pine Labs

SECURITY & POS TERMINALS

Traditionally the POS terminals have been there, but our POS terminals are very special in the sense that they are highly secure and undergo a lot of security. There are a lot of security standards which they have to follow like PCI compliance and PCA PTS etc.

The POS terminals are literally not open. So what we tried to do was that we created a wrapper on top of the secure OS so that the changes on those terminals will become easier. So if there are a lot of security aspects, then changes are also required to be done and at a lesser frequency because they have to undergo multiple rounds of testing and that is beyond the functional testing, security testing is also required. So we have developed this wrapper platform, what it does is that be it any other terminal you create a wrapper on top of it and you can push the application. For the proprietary payment terminals we have our own application store. Typically you download some applications from Android Play Store and Apple App Store. Similarly, on these terminals we try to write an application store from where you can put the payment application from our central application store for these terminals.

Now there is a culture of open API. So all the payment API's are exposed and you can build any interesting third party app, with Android based POS applications coming up at one side maintaining security, creating our own ecosystem of payment apps, open the platform for everybody to be able to create the app and at the time of payment they just invoke a simple API call to us and they can write a lot of use cases.

Our application store has more than 50 apps cutting across segments, merchant category codes and we have a developer community.

ENCOURAGING DIGITAL INDIA INITIATIVE

Digital India is like, if you talk about movement from cash to card, cash to UPI or wallets. The cash transaction is moving to either online or terminals. We are launching our contactless card acceptance on our Soft POS wherein you can have any Android device which is NFC (Near Field Communication) enabled, our application can be downloaded from the Play Store with the KYC done which is also digitized. So first is digital KYC, then on boarding the merchant instantly, then merchants can start transacting instantly. So whatever was happening on cash or the merchants who did not have the card acceptance machine suddenly all of them can join this. So any phone having NFC can download the ePOS app, it is going to be launched soon. Suddenly our coverage increased and these things definitely add to the Digital India initiative. Now there are transactions like offline which do not require connectivity, we are also supporting the networks. So let's say you go out and buy something, you just tap your card on a terminal or phone, the other transaction time which is usually is expected around five to 10 seconds, in other cases up to 30 seconds, it comes down to a second or so.

GROWTH FACTORS

Our POS device, commercial over the shelf device use our online system rail and then we have for all ecommerce players and they have an element of home delivery wherein our app gets used.

So if you have the home delivery part, then how to get our app gets used for the purpose of the delivery. All the manufacturers sell or update their product through stores, their online stores are driven by our e-commerce payment gateway offering.

GTM STRATEGY

Our machines are not simply machines, they are the enablers. We have apps into it and our back end system integrates with multiple acquiring banks, issuing banks, wallet players, UPI players, manufacturers for our signature product called Plutus Smart.

Our simple focus is to keep building new products, get the products that our merchant needs and we should be a partner to all merchant commerce. We are focused on solving problems for our merchants, customers, keep strengthening this app ecosystem and applications on the machines, bringing new things.