Bajaj Finance Prepares To Take On Fintechs At Their Own Game

Bajaj Finance Ltd. is set to sharpen its focus on the hyper-competitive payments business in India.

It will launch Bajaj Pay for consumers in the fourth quarter of the current financial year, according to the company’s investor presentation. This will offer payment solutions via UPI, pre-paid instruments, EMI cards and credit cards.

Bajaj Pay will offer a combination of what individual payment service providers bring to customers. While the likes of Google Pay offer services based on UPI, others like Paytm have a mix of UPI and pre-paid instruments. Bank payment platforms like State Bank of India’s YONO bring together a wider gamut of options.

Digital payments have picked up substantially during the Covid-19 pandemic as consumers stayed home. In particular, UPI-based payments have surged to over Rs 4 lakh crore in December 2020.

While targeting retail payments on the one hand, Bajaj Finance is also building a payment offering specific to merchants. This will enable access to over 100,000 merchants and “enable disproportionate growth in our market share from these merchants", the company said.

A large chunk of digital payments through UPI still remain peer-to-peer. However, peer-to-merchant payments have risen in recent months and now account for about 42% of transactions by value.

The push into payments will be followed by the launch of at least five marketplace platforms. Bajaj Finance said it will build five proprietary marketplaces — an EMI Store, an insurance marketplace, investment marketplace, BF health and a broking app.