Did you ever think that you could walk into a shop and buy any commodity without even touching your wallet or mobile? Perhaps you cannot even imagine it.
Five students of the National Institute of Technology – Karnataka (NITK) in Surathkal have made it possible, thanks to demonetisation, which inspired them to do something unbelievable.
‘Change Pay’ is a novel initiative introduced that has helped 6,500-plus people including students and faculty purchase using a ‘Cash-less’, ‘Card-less’ and ‘Mobile-less’ payment system which is both buyer and seller-friendly.
In fact, customers (buyers) need not carry any physical thing to initiate payment at sellers’ place, yet they can access their account almost anywhere they buy from! On the other hand, customers’ household expenditure as members can access a common account to pay their bills.
Speaking to DH, Change Pay CEO Dhyvik G J, a 3rd year BTech student, said that the Change Pay has a 3-step authentication (PIN, Facial recognition, Biometrics) process to conclude the whole transaction in a secure environment, as against the existing facility, where only PIN is sufficient for transactions. Stating that they are in the process of obtaining a patent, he said that the three-factor authentication process (for higher transaction) with a new masked biometrics authentication makes Change Pay a vault where one’s cash and details are safe.
Madhukar K, also a 3rd year BTech student, and Change Pay Chief Marketing Officer, said that a customer can purchase even a chocolate worth Rs 5 through Change Pay by paying Rs 2,000 currency and credit the balance Rs 1,995 to the customer’s account.
What is all the more interesting in Change Pay is that the facility increases revenue for the government as each transaction is recorded. The system is fraud-free and taxation becomes more efficient. At the same time, it reduces the flow of black money in the marketplace, thus making millions for the government on a long run.
They have also created a facility wherein a voucher can be created for a particular amount of money for a certain period of validity and it can be distributed to any users. Beneficiaries just need to use the generated code number and PIN to access the money at any seller’s place and can be reused until the cash lasts. It can also be sent to the person who does not use Change Pay, and he can use it at sellers place just by entering voucher number and its PIN (in the shop keeper’s mobile phone). While the customer can keep track of every penny spent, the merchants have an option to showcase their products, the availability and the prices. This, in turn, would help customers decide what to buy from where at the cheapest available price after comparing the product from shopkeepers.
To a query, Dhyvik said that even large players like Paytm are working on cashless economy but they hugely rely on smartphones and are not into offline POS terminal transactions, like Change Pay.
Currently Chetan Jaydeep (3rd year student), Hrishi Hiraskar and Salman Shah (both 2nd year students) are working as coders / software developers, under the leadership of Dhyvik G J. They have also recruited interns in order to help them out with the marketing and technical challenges.
At present, the facility is available at 16 establishments on the NITK campus, including three bakeries, four canteens, two photocopy centres, three milk booths and a barber shop. But plans are on the anvil to extend the facility to Mangaluru, Manipal and nearby areas and subsequently to Tumakuru and Bengaluru Rural district too. The team helps all customers and merchants in case of any difficulty with self funding and the NITK is supporting the novel venture of their brainy students.
DH News Service