Teardown Of “Direct To Consumer” Business Model

Both FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) and DTC (Direct to Consumer) companies manufacture their own products. (NOTE: In some markets, FMCG is called CPG or Consumer Packaged Goods. Source: McKinsey.) Both of them sell online and via brick-and-mortar stores. Their products are used by a Consumer i.e. private individual in his or her personal capacity … Read more

How To Revive Interoperability In UPI

In Interoperability – The Sole Loser In UPI, we saw why interoperability has been compromised in UPI. In this post, we’ll explore ways to revive this noble goal. Some people advocate education campaigns to increase awareness of VPA and thereby revive interoperability. Once people know what a VPA is, first they would ensure better VPAs and … Read more

Mark Of A Great Salesman In Today’s Strange And Unprecedented Times

There are countless theories on what it takes to be a great salesperson. When I began my career in sales back in the day, Harvard Business Review called out Empathy and Ego Drive as the most important qualities of a great salesperson. A few years later, it changed its mantra to “A good salesperson does … Read more

Interoperability – The Sole Loser In UPI

We ended Banks Have Not Lost The UPI Plot on a sobering note: Sadly, interoperability has been given the short shrift in the way UPI has evolved. In this post, we’ll see how interoperability has lost the UPI plot. One of the founding principles of UPI is “interoperability”, which stipulates that anyone with any UPI app … Read more

Banks Have Not Lost The UPI Plot

The common man hears about Google Pay, PhonePe and PayTM while making UPI payments – rather than State Bank of India, HDFC Bank or ICICI Bank. Ergo there’s a widespread belief that banks have lost the UPI plot. Take this tweet for example: The statement on NEFT with stanchart applies to the HDFC as well. … Read more

BNPL Ain’t Killing Banks – It’s Making Them Rich

Every time a shiny new fintech product or service enters the market, finsurgents immediately predict the death of traditional banks. But traditional banks always go laughing all the way to the – ahem – bank. We saw this when mobile wallets were the rage 8-10 years ago. Finsurgents predicted that they’d kill credit cards. Didn’t … Read more

All Payments Are Not Equal – Retail Payments Primer

This is a slightly edited version of my answer to the following question on Quora: I had a similar experience recently. I scanned the Merchant’s QR code at a restaurant with my PayTM app. PayTM asked me to link my bank account to complete the payment via UPI. I refused to do so because I wanted … Read more