[vc_row full_height="yes" equal_height="yes" content_placement="middle" text_align="center" type="image" enable_parallax="false" parallax_speed="0.4" padding_top="110" padding_bottom="0" bg_image="39982"][vc_column][kleo_gap size="100px"][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width="1/6"][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner el_class="uppercase" width="2/3"][vc_custom_heading text="Testing IVRS as a tool to promote digital payment adoption among microand small merchants" font_container="tag:h2|font_size:48px|text_align:center|color:%23ffffff|line_height:54px" google_fonts="font_family:Roboto%20Condensed%3A300%2C300italic%2Cregular%2Citalic%2C700%2C700italic|font_style:700%20bold%20regular%3A700%3Anormal" letter_spacing=""][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width="1/6"][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][kleo_gap size="130px"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row equal_height="yes" content_placement="middle" type="color" bg_color="#ffffff" padding_top="10" padding_bottom="0"][vc_column width="1/2"][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/2"][vc_row_inner equal_height="yes" content_placement="middle"][vc_column_inner width="5/12" css=".vc_custom_1504265033147{padding-right: 0px !important;}"][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width="1/3" css=".vc_custom_1504265063058{padding-left: 0px !important;}"][vc_column_text letter_spacing=""][addtoany][/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width="1/4" css=".vc_custom_1504265782417{padding-right: 0px !important;padding-left: 0px !important;}"][kleo_button title="Print this page" href="https://cashlesscatalyst.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/IVRS_Story-1.pdf" target="_blank" style="custom" position="left" size="lg" special="no" border="no" icon="print" font_size="16px" letter_spacing="" el_class="grey-icon" custom_text="#d11e3c"][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row type="image" bg_image="7841"][vc_column][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_column_text text_color="#383b3b" font_size="16px" letter_spacing=""]<p><em>Digital financial services in India have the potential to deliver timely and relevant products to low-income unbanked and underbanked populations. The uptake in mobile phone ownership, along with rapid advances in digital payment systems, is creating opportunities to connect poor households to affordable and reliable financial tools through mobile phones, and other digital interfaces. However, there are numerous hurdles – regulatory, geographic, sociocultural, infrastructural – for cashless interventions and, as a result, reaching the last mile user has always been a challenge.</em></p>

<p>CATALYST has been working to promote adoption and usage of digital payment solutions by micro merchant communities including government to people (G2P) services, dairy booths, kirana stores, and others. One of the major barriers to adoption and usage of digital payments is the lack of proper knowledge associated with the payment solutions. In a recent study conducted by CATALYST in partnership with PRICE, 42 percent of the fixed store merchants interviewed cited lack of awareness of digital payments as a barrier to adoption. Digital payments in India are complex in terms of understanding of the technology, which has undergone significant flux as well as regulatory changes (e.g., pricing, customer protection). It is therefore important to dispel doubts and fears that merchants and customers have on digital money and the security of their transactions. </p>
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row type="image" bg_image="7841"][vc_column][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_column_text text_color="#383b3b" font_size="16px" letter_spacing=""]<p><em>Digital financial services in India have the potential to deliver timely and relevant products to low-income unbanked and underbanked populations. The uptake in mobile phone ownership, along with rapid advances in digital payment systems, is creating opportunities to connect poor households to affordable and reliable financial tools through mobile phones, and other digital interfaces. However, there are numerous hurdles – regulatory, geographic, sociocultural, infrastructural – for cashless interventions and, as a result, reaching the last mile user has always been a challenge.</em></p>

<p>CATALYST has been working to promote adoption and usage of digital payment solutions by micro merchant communities including government to people (G2P) services, dairy booths, kirana stores, and others. One of the major barriers to adoption and usage of digital payments is the lack of proper knowledge associated with the payment solutions. In a recent study conducted by CATALYST in partnership with PRICE, 42 percent of the fixed store merchants interviewed cited lack of awareness of digital payments as a barrier to adoption. Digital payments in India are complex in terms of understanding of the technology, which has undergone significant flux as well as regulatory changes (e.g., pricing, customer protection). It is therefore important to dispel doubts and fears that merchants and customers have on digital money and the security of their transactions. </p>
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row type="image" bg_position_horizontal="center" enable_parallax="false" parallax_speed="0.4" padding_top="100" padding_bottom="100" el_class="uppercase" bg_image="39987"][vc_column][vc_row_inner content_placement="middle"][vc_column_inner][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row type="image" bg_image="7841"][vc_column][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_column_text text_color="#383b3b" font_size="16px" letter_spacing=""]<p>In pursuit of a sustainable and scalable model to spread awareness on digital payments and to equip merchants to make informed choices, CATALYST tested a dedicated Interactive Voice Response System (IVRS) platform for small merchants. The objective was to build a financial literacy platform that seamlessly overcomes the constraints of literacy, regional differences, and the needs and costs of in-person counsel and training.</p>

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row type="image"][vc_column][vc_single_image image="39991" alignment="center"][vc_custom_heading text="Evolution from IVRS 1.0 to IVRS 2.0 " font_container="tag:h2|font_size:36px|text_align:center|color:%23000000|line_height:46px" google_fonts="font_family:Roboto%20Condensed%3A300%2C300italic%2Cregular%2Citalic%2C700%2C700italic" letter_spacing="" css=".vc_custom_1547540019277{margin-bottom: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;}"][vc_row_inner equal_height="yes" content_placement="middle"][vc_column_inner][vc_column_text text_color="#383b3b" font_size="16px" letter_spacing=""]<p>Initially, CATALYST partnered with a vendor to build an IVRS to provide information on digital payment methods to small merchants. IVRS 1.0 covered multiple payment types which included mobile-based payment options such as Wallets, Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) as well card-based payment solutions such as Point of Sale (PoS) devices, mobile PoS (m-PoS) and Bharat QR. The IVRS featured information such as the onboarding process, cost of ownership and payment completion process for<br />
each of the payment types. The goal of developing the IVRS was to provide an alternative channel for small merchants who do not typically use a smartphones to access information on digital payments.</p>
<p>Thirty-five merchant interviews were conducted in targeted areas across Jaipur, Delhi and Gurugram. In this phase, a mixed sample of 15 fixed store merchants, 10 roving merchants, four home-based business owners, and six merchants from federated networks such as eMitra and dairy were interviewed.</p>

<p><strong>While the value of the platform as a tool was revealed to be high, its usability was low. Some of the learnings from beta testing of IVRS 1.0 were: </strong> </p>

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row type="image" bg_position_horizontal="center" enable_parallax="false" parallax_speed="0.4" padding_top="100" padding_bottom="100" el_class="uppercase" bg_image="24297"][vc_column][vc_row_inner content_placement="middle"][vc_column_inner][vc_single_image image="24308" alignment="center"][vc_custom_heading text="LEARNING BY ITERATING" font_container="tag:h2|font_size:36px|text_align:center|color:%23ffffff|line_height:46px" google_fonts="font_family:Roboto%20Condensed%3A300%2C300italic%2Cregular%2Citalic%2C700%2C700italic|font_style:700%20bold%20regular%3A700%3Anormal" letter_spacing="" css=".vc_custom_1533035881798{margin-bottom: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;}"][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row type="image" bg_image="7841"][vc_column][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_column_text text_color="#383b3b" font_size="16px" letter_spacing=""]
Our conversations with Kamal gives us important insights into the operational challenges related to testing our hypotheses of bundling digital payments with credit propositions. We are back to the drawing board and are working on an iteration of the pilot.

In the next phase, we will introduce a no/low cost payment alternative for small merchants such as Unified Payments Interface (UPI) to help them overcome the cost barriers associated with purchasing and renting a PoS machine. Using our iterative design and learning process, we will also continue to gather deeper insights into the factors that influence merchants and the customer’s willingness to adopt digital payments for small transactions at retail shops such as the one run by Kamal and his family.

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][kleo_button title="Download" href="https://cashlesscatalyst.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/unlocking-finance-small-merchants.pdf" target="_blank" position="center" size="lg" type="boxed-icon" special="no" icon="download" font_size="14" letter_spacing="" el_class="pkirbtn" icon_custom_background="#d11e3c" icon_custom_text="#ffffff"][/vc_column][/vc_row]