The company will also enable service centers to create digital invoices and send it to customers through an email and/or SMS which would include a payment link with the pre-filled values of invoice number and amount. The customer can then make the payment through credit/debit cards, digital wallets, UPI or net banking without having to visit the outlet. Once the customer makes the payment, the service center and the service advisor get a confirmation, following which the car is delivered to the customer.
“Following the demonetization drive in November last year, there has been a 40% month-on-month growth in demand for facilitating cashless payments from car service centers. Most small and medium service centers face problems like high rental charges of stand-alone PoS devices and the lack of alternate digital payment tools,” said Vaibhav Lodha, Co-founder, ftcash.
“On the other hand, customers want a quick, easy, and preferably mobile-based method of payment. ftcash’s payment solution solves significant problems for both participants eliminating the need for the customer to make a physical transaction and enabling the merchant to receive timely payments,” Lodha added.
By facilitating easy financial transactions over a digital medium, ftcash claims to have empowered over 5,000 small businesses and micro-merchants across India with the tools to transact online in a hassle-free manner. The platform also assists MSMEs, home-based entrepreneurs, and mom-and-pop stores to secure working capital and small-ticket loans for day-to-day operations from financial institutions with its unique and proprietary transactional data.
Earlier this month, the payments startup raised its pre-series-A from Silicon Valley-based venture capital fund, 500 Startups. Ftcash CEO Sanjeev Chandak revealed that the new funds will be used for product development and merchant acquisition as well as for hiring.
