We need to think from a long-term perspective: Probir Roy

Posted on | November 1, 2006 |

Rediff interview with Probir Roy, co-founder and director, PayMate.

PayMate is a mobile payments company spun off by founders of Coruscant Tec. Sherpalo Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, two of Silicon Valley’s most reputed venture capital firms invested about $5 million in the company this year.

You can soon pay your shopping, restaurant, credit card, and electricity bills, and even send money to someone through your mobile phone! PayMate is here with a mobile payment solution, which offers convenience and flexibility of making payments by simply sending an SMS.

Paymate has 15 merchants today, including Rediff.com, Cleartrip, Futurebazaar, Gili, JeevanSathi, 99acres, Naukri.com, Telebrands, Dish TV, OnMobile, VSNL, Fun Republic, Inox, PVR, Fame Adlabs and Travelmartindia.

Will Indians accept a mobile payment system?

In India many prepaid top-ups are done through SMS. There are banks — like Citibank — that provide this service and there are half-a-million people who have registered as prepaid top-up users through SMS. Half of this group consists of Citibank customers. So our prepaid service will be an adjunct to the existing service.

How many people have registered for the services?

There has been a fair amount of interest in our service. But it’s still early days as this kind of a service takes time. We have to build on the mobile payment category. It will be a long and hard route because it’s about changing people’s attitude and mindset. Television sets, washing machines, ATMs and credit cards have taken years to pick up. So we need to think from a long-term perspective.

Its interesting that he sees a connection between India’s success in the services industry and British Raj.

India has remained a service-oriented country? Is this a good trend or should there be more focus on product development?

Product development is very important, but we have no track record in creating successful products. We are not a product-making country. We are very good in services, it’s a part of our culture. We were under the British rule so we are more service-oriented; we want to work for people.

Related: Consumer adoption is the biggest challenge: PayMate

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