Suvidhaa acquires mobile PoS platform AasaanPay

AasaanPay is a device that can be plugged into a mobile phone to be used for credit or debit card transactions

Suvidhaa Infoserve, India's largest payment management company, announced that it had acquired a mobile point of sale device, along with its intellectual property rights, on Tuesday.

AasaanPay, developed by IIT-Hyderabad dropouts: Sainath Gupta, Pruthvi Sabbu and Shashank Sahni, is a device that can be plugged into a mobile phone, which can then be used for credit or debit card transactions.

"Swipe your card on this machine and the key a PIN into the device, which is connected to the phone via bluetooth. It costs Rs 4,000 and needs just the internet connection on the phone. It can be used by anyone," said Paresh Rajde, founder of Suvidhaa Infoserve.

Suvidhaa, Axis Bank's banking correspondent, will now be able to use this technology to facilitate transactions without a bulky expensive machine and unreliable internet networks.

"This device will help tap into the 15 crore cards issued under Jan Dhan Yojana and enhance the card acceptance ecosystem. India has 650 million cards but just 2 lakh ATMs and 10 lakh PoS outlets. It will also cut out the infrastructure bottleneck and reduce costs," Rajde added.

RBI recently enhanced the cash at PoS transaction limit to Rs 2,000 for rural areas. Suvidhaa received angel funding by Shapoorji Pallonji Mistry and subsequently VC funding from NVP (USA), Reliance Capital, IFC (World Bank Group) and Mitsui & Co.