Last updated on June 19th, 2024 at 12:41 pm

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In today’s hyperconnected digital landscape, the ability to offer seamless and secure payment acceptance is no longer just a competitive advantage—it’s necessary for businesses looking to stay ahead and be leaders in their space. This necessity has been a differentiator in the world of payments, and oh, what a journey it has been. 

As a young company of four years, Decentro has always aimed to lead the payments ecosystem by offering innovative and impactful solutions. After all, we were operating in a payments market projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 27.1% between 2021 and 2026, reaching a staggering value of approximately $2.3 trillion.

Our journey began with a clear vision: to elevate the payments landscape and reduce friction in launching and operating financial products for businesses. From Day 1, we’ve been committed to pioneering new ways to streamline payments, making payments as efficient as possible while enhancing the overall financial ecosystem. Our innovative offerings have consistently set us apart as a leading payments company, driving transformation and progress in the industry. 

As a forward-thinking enabler that thrives in India’s highly competent payments landscape, we at Decentro also understand the need to effectively navigate the regulatory requirements associated with a solution that enables money flow. Therefore, we launched Flow 2.0, an enhanced payments module that serves all businesses’ payment collection-related requirements with high performance, 100% RBI compliance, and enhanced security features. 

Amid our journey, we also acquired the Payment Aggregator license from the RBI, becoming the youngest company to have the license in the roster, comprising more than 185 fintech companies that applied for it. Acquiring a PA license from the RBI marked a significant milestone in our journey, validating our robust technology stack and our strong focus on impactful innovation. 

So, what is a PA license, and why is it important?

A PA license, or Payment Aggregator license, is a regulatory authorisation granted by the RBI to entities that facilitate digital payments on behalf of merchants or businesses. Obtaining this license signifies compliance with regulatory requirements set forth by the RBI, including strict adherence to guidelines related to capital adequacy, security standards, anti-money laundering (AML) and know-your-customer (KYC) norms, among others. Additionally, acquiring a PA license underscores the importance of operational efficiency and necessitates a strong understanding of the payment landscape, risks, and other operational procedures. It reflects a commitment to regulatory compliance and delivering seamless and secure payment services to merchants and businesses.

By working with an authorised payment aggregator, companies like yours gain access to a wide range of benefits, including:

1. Confidence in compliance processes: Compliance is non-negotiable in today’s regulatory landscape. Working with a licensed PA can help you and your business ensure built-in regulatory compliance and risk processes. By adhering to strict standards and best practices, you can build trust with customers, partners, and regulators, laying a solid foundation for long-term success.
   
2. Maturity & Focus: Working with a regulated payment aggregator also helps you focus on your core business lines and engineer better user experiences rather than worrying about managing payment-related integrations & reconciliation. This has a substantial positive impact on revenues and operational expenditures daily.
   
3. Building custom & complex journeys: A regulated PA can also help implement 10X faster onboarding processes and offer customers a wide range of services and payment options. At the same time, having a direct line of sight into the latest RBI regulations and the best possible industry standards across the market, the PA partner can help large aggregators & platforms build the desired journeys. 

With Flow 2.0, you as a customer can:

• Go to market in days with Decentro’s complete payment module
• Focus on core business and product instead of worrying about payment rails
• Drive better conversions and customer experience
• Ensure better P&L due to lower costs in integration and operations
• 100% transparency around the flow of funds and compliance

The promise of convenience, security, and efficiency with the payment processes makes this a win-win proposition for both you as a business and Decentro. 

So, now that we have addressed the promises of compliance and innovation, what are the main features that Flow 2.0 offers businesses?

We at Decentro have empowered countless businesses by elevating their payment capabilities – for both payment collections and payment disbursals with a direct focus on becoming a partner to our customers in their journey and helping them drive growth by leveraging our cutting-edge technology stack – Flow. So, what’s the differentiator now? 

The new and enhanced version of Flow promises the highest performance, with: 

• 99%+ success rates, 
• 99.9% uptime, 
• ~30% reduction in running operational costs, 
• and a 5X reduction in time to market when compared to direct banking integrations.
  

It relies on versatile, agile, high-performance APIs and a robust platform backed by multiple banking partners to help you solve collections and payment needs. 

The new stack solves the three main pain points we observed in the market. 

Engineering Performance 

We have invested heavily in upgrading our technology infrastructure to improve performance across functions such as online payments, automating recurring billing, or managing subscription services. This involved optimising backend systems, increasing processing speeds, and reducing latency to ensure faster and more reliable transactions.

We’ve supercharged our stack with cutting-edge analytics and intelligent learning. What does that mean for our customers? Smoother transactions and faster processing times. It’s all about optimising routing and settlements to improve your experience.

We also realise the importance of a compelling customer experience and have implemented real-time monitoring and alerting systems to proactively identify and address performance issues, ensuring customer service delivery.

Flexibility

The one-size-fits-all narrative must be revised when catering to an ecosystem as diverse as India. We understand this and have worked towards building a solution that can accommodate the evolved use cases of businesses like yours across industries.

Across our Recurring Payments, Virtual Accounts via Multi-Collect and UPI collection offerings, we have developed flexible APIs and SDKs that enable easy integration with existing systems and workflows. 

We have also introduced configurable workflows and rule-based automation features, enabling customers to automate repetitive tasks, customise payment routing rules, and define personalised workflows for different types of transactions. At the same time, you get – 

• Ability to onboard yourself as a platform/aggregator too. 
• Ability to split & make settlements across your sub-merchants/end parties. 

And more.  

Operational Excellence 

The final and most crucial aspect we address through Flow 2.0 is enhanced operational excellence, supported by extensive support services, and a promise of a 10X faster launch. Your businesses can reduce manual errors, enhance efficiency, and ensure seamless operations by automating payment and collection processes and optimising workflows.

We have also expanded our support infrastructure with additional resources and expertise, including dedicated support engineers and expert customer success managers, to ensure the timely resolution of customer queries and issues.

We are also optimising our dashboards to help businesses like yours gain access to enhanced insights into your financial operations. The dashboard is intuitive and developed to provide real-time data analytics, customisable reporting, and predictive analytics capabilities, enabling businesses to make data-driven decisions and gain a competitive edge.

This, along with simple and intuitive documentation and exploratory sandboxes, has provided our portfolio customers with multiple avenues for seeking assistance and accessing self-service resources, ensuring you are empowered and supported throughout your integration and deployment journeys. 

Flow 2.0 already empowers payments for large platforms & groups like Shiprocket, Kodo, Volopay, Dvara Group, etc., ensuring minimal friction and maximising business efficiency. 

We are fully committed to unlocking your business’s full potential and positioning you for success in the digital age. As part of our approach, we aim to explore empowering categories such as BFSI, Logistics, Online Marketplaces, and fintech/SaaS platforms. 

With Decentro by your side, some special nuanced features come along – 

• You can integrate white Label APIs and SDKs and go live in a couple of days.
• Fully functional simulation testbed that mirrors real-world performance and mimics all the live environment scenarios. 
• Comprehensive reporting capabilities spanning transaction and settlement reports that help operations teams reconcile without hassles.
• It is a simple-to-use dashboard with complete transparency of charges and transaction updates.
• Fully compliant flow with the ability to support multiple sub-merchant-based workflows and transactions.

Are you ready to elevate your payment experience? Connect with us for a chat. 

Cheers.

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