Slow Internet connectivity is the biggest bottleneck for payment business and there is still a huge trust deficit when it comes to online payments, Kunal Shah, founder and CEO of Freecharge said. Speaking on the sidelines at the Global Mobile Internet Conference, Shah told FE that the transaction success rate was still at 85% level and it needs to improve.
“When we started our business, our transaction success rate was at 60%. Now it has improved to 85%. But still, this will diminish the trust factor which people have for online payments,” Shah said. “Poor internet connections will only keep the customers away from transacting online,” he adds.
Freecharge, a business unit of Accelyst Solutions Pvt Ltd, is a portal for online recharge for prepaid mobiles. It has about 15 million users and the company was recently acquired by e-commerce marketplace Snapdeal for $400 million.
While experts were pitching for the free internet service, Shah was of the opinion that free internet will not solve the problem but consistent internet will solve the problem of transaction failure rates.
“The younger generation has no interest in waiting. People will look for something that works faster. Today not many are using internet on-the-go. People are just using Wi-Fi at home and office. Unless that changes and people don’t think much on how much data they use, online transactions and payment business will not see progress,” shah said.