Exclusive Interview with Karthik Thenkarai, Co-Founder & Director at Paycorp.io

Smart payments are helping to streamline the accounts receivable process in the B2B space. They carry essential information along with the payment. This helps the accounting team easily track where the money is coming from and which invoice it is going to. Paycorp.io is a smart solution for all kinds of recurring payments. With its instant and assured B2B recurring auto-debit solutions, the payment gets completed on the same day as against the time taking procedures with standard industry solutions. Analytics Insight has engaged in an exclusive interview with Karthik Thenkarai, Co-Founder & Director at Paycorp.io.

1. Kindly brief us about the company, its specialization, and the services that your company offers.

Paycorp.io is a payment services company co-founded in 2020 by a group of five entrepreneurs – Karthik Thenkarai, Prashant Maroli, Balaji Jagannathan, Anish Thomas, and Ivan Fernandes. We host a digital platform for complete Direct to Consumer payments. Paycorp.io is a smart solution for all kinds of recurring payments. With its instant and assured B2B recurring auto-debit solutions, the payment gets completed on the same day as against the time taking procedures with standard industry solutions. The payment solution provider further takes the edge over the payment mandate registration success rate, which is 95% in the case of Paycorp as against 65% in traditional modes, which increases the annual revenue to their customers by more than 2%. Paycorp.io also makes customer onboarding a zero-error proposition and the resultant cost saving can directly add to the bottom line of the corporate.

The recurring auto-debit solution provider is equipped with varied payment options, such as ACH, UPI, cards, etc., and creates multiple digital touchpoints like WhatsApp, link push, and portal for ease of access.

2. With what mission and objectives, the company was set up? In short, tell us about your journey since the inception of the company?

Paycorp.io was envisioned as a platform that would modernize payment collection for businesses. Our mission has been to create a payment ecosystem that enables businesses to make or receive payments, bringing ease and trust through continuous innovation using technology. Within the first six months of the inception, we focused on IP development for recurring payments and ensured market validation for the same. It is within this time frame that we acquired our first customer as well, following which we established partnerships with six banks and subsequently acquired over 25 customers, including at least 20 NBFCs, corporate and top banks. In the second year, we completed the Global market research while acquiring and developing intellectual property for collections, insurance payments, etc in real-time.

3. Brief us about you as Co-Founder of the company and your contributions to the company and the industry.

I have been a part of the banking and payment automation space for at least the past two decades, and during the journey, have been instrumental in the success of many-core banking system upgrades and replacements across India and the Middle East. I have also had the privilege to be a part of the national committee that laid down the AML guidelines for India. As a co-founder of Paycorp.io, my core functional areas within the company is quite vast, for it encompasses multiple responsibilities including growth strategy. It's akin to the experience of developing India's first fully automated recurring payments processing solution in India, integrating between bank and NPCI. The wide expanse of knowledge in the banking and payments automation space helps me turn the vision of Paycorp.io into reality.

Concerning Paycorp.io, its main objective was to build a market acquisition plan for 15% of the total addressable market. As a co-founder, I contributed to building the organization from the ground up to the growth stage, laid out the go-to-market and sales strategy for acquiring businesses across multiple segments like Banks, NBFCs, Schools and Universities, and Rental agencies, etc. It gives a sense of pride that I have been able to spearhead the company to establish Paycorp.io as a leading recurring payment collection service provider for banks and NBFCs within one year of inception.

4. What is your biggest USP that differentiates the company from competitors?

Driven by innovation, we have focused on several industry firsts to ensure an unparallel experience for all stakeholders, including customers. For instance, the company enables Do It Yourself onboarding for quick customer acquisition, along with Predictive Analytics to maximize collection. The other USP includes tailored, totally automated business solutions for EMI payments, Rentals, and Insurance claims, among others.

Also, as mentioned earlier, Paycorp.io takes the edge overpayment mandate registration success rate, which is 95%, as against 65% in traditional modes, which increases the annual revenue to their customers by more than 2%. Furthermore, the payment gets completed on the same day as against the time taking procedures with standard industry solutions.

5. How do you plan to revolutionize the Indian market and what are your plans to tap the market?

With our understanding of the market and segmenting of customers, 43% of our target customers are underserved and require digitization of payments. The least learning curve and convenience are the key to addressing this segment. We focus on constantly improving the user experience and ease of onboarding. Our road map is planned around taking leaps in user experience improvements. So we expect rapid growth in consumer onboarding.

The key takeaway for the corporates we serve is the ability to maximize the successful collection of payments on time. We are investing heavily in understanding user behavior through technology and correspondingly deploying proactive prompts and outreach measures to ensure sufficient balance is maintained on the due date to collect the payments.

We are setting up banking partnerships and building a sponsor bank ecosystem with which customer onboarding can be made quicker and smoother for our corporate customers.

6. What are your growth plans for the next 12 months?

This year our target is to grow our revenue 4 times more than the previous year.

Our focus will be to establish a partner ecosystem to acquire more customers. The partner ecosystem will comprise all top and regional banks in the country and a network of NBFCs, corporates, and SMEs.

In addition, there are plans to go global and host pointed recurring payment services in UAE and USA.

7. How do you see the company and the industry in the future ahead?

Our focus is on B2B payment collections. The B2B payments segment is currently lagging compared to the retail payments. We plan to bridge that gap and digitize B2B payments. Similarly, the recurring payments and auto-debit payments have many loose ends with manual action dominating the processes flow. We endeavor to digitize the entire flow, thus making the recurring payments happen efficiently with the least cost of failure and maximized profits for our corporate customers.

With growing digital payment initiatives by the Governments and compelling business needs, we are uniquely placed to build additional payments products and scale the business rapidly.

8. What is your leadership mantra?

There isn't one single mantra as such that I follow in life. However, there are a few traits and characteristics that according to me should be imbibed by any individual, especially the leaders. Candidness, integrity, cooperation, valor, and ownership are to name a few. It is important to think global and embrace change while it's equally essential to deliver what you commit, for it builds trust. Also, members of a team need to value each other and share knowledge, even as we explore new possibilities and learn from failure. Be responsible, take initiative, and stay focused.