BharatPe’s “12%” Marketing Strategy

Why digital payments are not picking up in India? why most of the shopkeepers/Cab drivers
insist to give cash instead of UPI payment? Main problem is the transaction fees that levied on
digital transaction and other is money is not credited to beneficiary account on the same day.
These problems were identified by the Shashvat when he was studying in IIT Delhi looking for
start up and that’s how BharatPe was born.

What BharatPe is all about? is it similar like Google Pay/Paytm providing the facilities like
Money transfer, Bill Payments, Movie/Railway/Hotel/Bus ticket booking or is it like Len Den
club/Lend box which provides Peer-to-Peer(P2P) lending platforms where you can lend/ earn
interest by giving loans. Well, we can say it is combination of both Fintech company and
Consumer business with the benefits of zero opening fees, almost zero or less transaction fees,
up to 12% of interest on BharatPe’s interest account and loads of other benefits like free swipe
machine, Free QR codes delivered to your home, Cricket goodies, chance to meet our favorite
cricket star(which we can say is one the attractive marketing strategy for Indian consumers).

As we know, BharatPe is Fintech company and according to RBI regulations for this category it
cannot enter the Consumer Business market. So, what they did is very interesting! Len den is
one of the renown P2P lending company in consumer business. BharatPe decided to tie up with
Len Den Club so that BharatPe can have both the rights of Fintech company and P2P
consumer Companies. This Business strategy worked well for them giving sharp rise in its total
consumers as well as increase in total Asset under management (AUM) and RBI also don’t
have any objection in doing so.

BharatPe has kept SHOPKEEPER at the center of its Fintech Universe. Shashvat Nakrani and
Ashneer Grover, Cofounder’s of BharatPe said that shopkeepers are the backbone of the Indian
economy and one of the most underserved segments. Shashvat (IIT Delhi student) identifies
and listed some of the problems shopkeepers were facing, which primarily includes charges
levied on payments (minimum 1.5%), no one was lending them loans as they don’t have papers.
That’s when he struck with an idea of leveraging UPI to remove all the charges on payments,
build a network of merchants and monetize through other financial products. According to RBI
guidelines on October 2020, all payment companies would have to shift to interporal QR codes.
And in this ways BharatPe was launched in market.

They have applied the most basic marketing strategy by using interoperability of QR codes that
one can use only one App (which none obvious than BharatPe only) with uses one single QR
code for all the payments. Second strategy was zero transaction fees, which was at least 1.5 %
in most of the other Apps. Though 1.5% is not too much but margin in retail is less(10-15%) and
in that if they were able to save 1.5% by using this App then why not. That’s how they lured so
many merchants on BharatPe launched.

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In BharatPe 12% club app, loans were given around the interest rate of 12%. Also,
BharatPe has its own interest account in which one can earn up to 12% interest on his
investments. to earn the trust of merchants, they also said that, BharatPe aims to
achieve an investment AUM of about 741.8 crore and lending AUM of about 371 crore
from the 12% club by the end of the fiscal year. With easy accessibility on google play
store and Apple store BharatPe has over 10 million plus downloads.

The most basis marketing strategy is used here also in 12% club. Credmint which is
competitor to BharatPe is giving up to 9% interest rate on 1-10 lakhs of investment,
BharatPe is giving them up to 12% interest rate and collateral free loans up to 10 lakhs
on 12% club. In addition to that BharatPe said there will be no processing charges or
pre-payment charges on the consumer loans.
Second important thing is in P2P lending no one trust while giving loans to someone but
as BharatPe is tied up with RBI approved NBFC this risk is also nullified and one can
easily trust the process.

Consumer can invest through the app starting at anytime and withdraw anytime without
any withdrawals charges which is not present in other App’s.in their merchant app, they
have mentioned all the benefits of 12% club over the regular account which includes 0%
loan processing fees, cashback up to 10000Rs on investment account , Flat 1000Rs off
on BharatPe swipe machine, 20 % discounts on bill payments, Free cricket goodies to
attract the more and more consumers.

Apart from their exclusive services they have around 117 operational cities in India
which will provide customer support.

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