Razorpay posts 3-fold growth in payment volume, eyes 5 mn new businesses

Fintech unicorn Razorpay said it registered 3X growth in payment volumes over the past 12 months, thanks to the thousands of small and medium businesses (SMBs), especially from tier 2 and 3 cities, who chose the payment gateway as they went online for the first time.

This led to large scale adoption of digital payments across the country, as Razorpay witnessed over 54 per cent of digital transaction volume coming from SMBs in tier-2 and 3 cities alone. Online transactions in cities like Ahmedabad and Jaipur grew by about 50 per cent within a week's time.
 

The Tiger Global and Sequoia-backed firm aims to further accelerate this digital revolution, by enabling 5 million new Indian SMBs to adopt digital payments in the next 12 months. Currently, the company serves over 5 million businesses.
 

“One of the significant overnight changes we saw in how people were approaching the initial lockdown period of isolation and uncertainty in 2020 was in their digital spending behaviours, especially people from tier 2 and 3 cities,” said Harshil Mathur, chief executive and co-founder of Razorpay.

“Online shopping became the new normal but it left the offline businesses grappling with the fear of losing their business. Not only the offline businesses but some of the online businesses in the essentials category, bill payments, education among others were also struggling to keep up with demand and ensure business continuity.”

Bengaluru-based Razorpay plans to invest heavily in strengthening the security and fraud analytics infrastructure. It would also be building hyperlocal solutions to provide a seamless and safe payment experience for businesses.
 

Razorpay also helped provide access to credit to thousands of SMBs through its neo-banking platform, RazorpayX. The company has been disbursing credit of upwards of Rs 250 crore per month, which has helped several entrepreneurs get access to working capital. The company aims to scale this up to Rs 500 crore per month as it looks to expand its lending offering.
 

Recently, Razorpay announced a string of new products aimed at empowering small businesses. This includes vernacular language support in 7 languages, India’s first B2B app store and Group Health Insurance for companies with as less as two employees. It has also been steadily growing its neo-banking arm, RazorpayX which serves more than 10,000 businesses.
 

In the last six months, Razorpay has witnessed 40 per cent month-on-month growth. It powers payments for businesses such as Facebook, Ola, Zomato and Swiggy.