A youngster was able to avoid taking a high-interest loan to pay the property rent deposit to his landlord by using his credit card. Upon this, he was comfortably able to repay it within 45 days of a credit-free period. This was made possible through Paymatrix. With more and more of us staying away from home, this start-up is offering a simple solution, borrow on your existing credit card to pay your rent. Plus, their analytics-driven property rent management platform makes transactions between tenants, landlords and property managers more formal and on-the-record. This comes as a welcome change in a world where 'rental agreement' continues to be an alien term.
Clearly, something like this is the need of the hour, you'll realise this just by looking at the number of users registered on their platform, which is about 76,000 from 18+ cities and towns in India and the amount they have processed, which is about Rs 200 crore. This was enough reason for us to get in touch with Mukesh Chandra Anchuri, Founder and CEO of Paymatrix, about how far along they have come since the time they started in November 2017 and just how far they intend to go. Excerpts:
1. First off, we really want to understand the conversation that went a long way in bringing Paymatrix to life. What was the problem statement which was discussed?
The idea of Paymatrix started when we faced the challenge of arranging a ten-month rental deposit for an apartment in Mumbai. We had to shell out a rental deposit of `3,00,000 and we found it tough to arrange such kind of money within a short span of time. This was when we thought about a platform that could facilitate quick access to credit for rent, rent deposit and similar expenses while extending the facility to borrow and repay in flexible terms to borrowers.
2. The relationship between tenants and landlords is a sacred one. Tell us how you proceeded to simplify this relationship and before you did, what was the research that went into it?
As we deep-dived into the problem, we realised that rent, maintenance and rental deposits are predominantly transacted in cash or bank transfers in India. Property rent and maintenance constitute about 20% to 30% of an individual’s expense basket with no option of paying it on credit. While one has an option to use his credit card or avail a loan for small-ticket discretionary expenses such as travel, entertainment and e-commerce, there is no such option of mandatory recurrent large ticket expense such as rent. With the thought of solving this pain point, we started Paymatrix to enable individuals to better manage their cash flow during cash crunches or whenever they face unanticipated expenses.
3. Considering how an increasing number of youngsters move cities and things like rental agreements, rent receipts are pretty much alien, highlight for us the examples of having these elements in place and how Paymatrix can help with it.
We started with a proposition of enabling individuals to pay their property rent, maintenance and rent deposits online using a multitude of options, including credit card, e-wallet, debit card, net banking and EMI. As we started to facilitate the same, we started to capture valuable transactional data between tenant and landlord that can be put to better use by building trust-based services such as digital rent agreements, rent receipt generation and tenant screening services.
4. Tell us about the rewards and cashback that act as an incentive to get on your platform?
Tenants paying rentals or other expenses on Paymatrix earn about 1-3% of the transaction value in the form of rewards, cashback or air miles. Further, the credit card holders can take the advantage of 45-50 days of credit-free period wherein they can better manage their payables using the same.
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5. What are some less-obvious features about Paymatrix?
Paymatrix also enables you to pay for all your bonafide expenses including property rent, maintenance, rent deposit, tuition fees, vendor payments, material purchases and more on your credit card without having to worry about the availability of point-of-sale at the recipient. Further, we also facilitate the option of extending a quick loan from our partnered lenders for these bonafide expenses.
6. You started five years ago. What have been two of your most significant milestones in this journey?
While we took four years to achieve the first 100 crore milestone, in terms of gross payment value, we have crossed the next 100 crore milestone within just 12 months. Another significant milestone for us is achieving operational profitability in 2020 while ensuring responsible growth with positive unit economics in place.
7. How has the journey been for you as an entrepreneur? What are some of the things you had to learn, unlearn and relearn?
Our entrepreneurial journey has key learnings for us: No matter what type of product, technology, industry or business we are working upon, success requires adopting the right technology to solve a pressing consumer need using an appropriate business model. It is indeed tough to achieve the holy trinity of the above. Most of the entrepreneurs might end up figuring one or two of the above and it is imperative that they search for the third one to be successful. Another key learning is that the start-up journey requires one to learn, experiment, fail, correct oneself and repeat to sustain and grow. As long as we stick to the above formula and stand receptive to feedback from all stakeholders, the path to success inevitably opens up.
8. What's coming up next? What can we expect in the near future?
We are working on launching an upgraded variant of Paymatrix that can be a plug-and-play model and easily integrable by any partner platform to replicate our proposition to their customers. This shall enable partner platforms to offer extended value to their customers while enabling them to reach a wider customer base, piggybacking on their existing customer relationships.
Who can use Paymatrix?
- Employed individuals who would want to better manage their large ticket expenses such as property rent, tuition fees, maintenance and vendor payments
- Start-up founders and small businesses who would want to better manage their payables and take the working capital benefit for 45-50 working days using a corporate card, purchase card or a business card
For more on them check out paymatrix.in
