Five apps that technologically empower, digitise SME transactions

New Delhi: Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) form the backbone of our economy. Amidst a challenging business environment, Indian SMEs have maintained consistent growth. However, the industry faces challenges like lack of adequate capital and receiving payments on time.

Aiming to ease hurdles faced by small sellers for receiving payments, many platforms are offering dedicated payment gateways to bridge the gap by removing intermediaries and offering solutions like instant payments to SMEs, as follows: 

Paytm - Paytm is a leading mobile payment and commerce platform. With the current user base of more than 250 million, Paytm is on a mission to bring half a billion Indians to the mainstream of the economy using mobile payment, commerce and recently launched Payment Bank. Headquartered in the National Capital Region, the company`s investors include SoftBank, SAIF Partners, Alibaba Group, Ant Financial (Alipay) and Mediatek.IndiaMART -IndiaMART`s `Pay With IndiaMART` feature allows to receive instant payment with click of a button. 

The hassle-free payment gateway with the advantage of receiving instant payments at the lowest possible interest rate of 1.75 percent makes it exceptionally suitable for SMEs, enabling sound financial dealings especially for those who cannot afford to wait for payments. Meanwhile, for the buyers, the digital payment service enables an Escrow Account, which takes care of the first point of payment collection till the product is received and confirmed by them.

SBI - Buddy - Merchant - SBI Buddy Merchant App is State Bank of India`s Mobile Wallet for Merchants and Sub-Merchants to accept/collect payments from their customers against sale of goods and services. 

The money so collected can also be transferred to the Merchant`s linked current account with SBI. Paymate- PayMate provides business customers the ability to automate and seamlessly manage vendor payments (AP), customer payments (AR), invoicing, and cash flow. 

In addition, businesses can easily apply for working capital financing at competitive rates. Multiple forms of electronic payment channels are supported including cards, net-banking, ACH, NEFT, RTGS, and IMPS. All services are delivered via proprietary cloud-based, payments platform and can be accessed on any web enabled desktop or mobile device.

RazorPay - Razorpay`s online payment gateway allows Indian businesses to collect payments online through credit/debit cards, net banking and wallets like JioMoney, Airtel Money, FreeCharge and others.