India – A promising market?

India is an emerging market and it is totally different from U.S., which means we have to be different in our approach. In India and most Asian countries, very small margin of consumers use the online payment services, and it is mostly for account transactions. People are yet to open up to the idea of using these online payment gateways for their day to day requirements such as paying utility bills. Though there are several establishments like government run and independent kiosks that act as a single stop for bill payments, they are still quite fragmented in their operations. The good news is that young generation is more technology enabled and is trying to leverage it in their day to day affairs, especially financial ones. They may not use it the way we do in the U.S. but they surely are opening up to the thought, especially for bill payments. Hence, currently we are trying to observe the difference and challenges in Indian market, hereby enhancing our learning. There is a lot growth factor involved in this, and after making a complete assessment, we hope to re-factor the existing technologies to suit the Indian needs or build new ones. We have set up a development centre in Bangalore that currently has 35 people and by end of next year; we hope to be 125 people strong in India. At present, these 35 people will help us sell the existing technologies by optimizing it. The primary charter is to build new technology that is India centric, but that should stop us from customizing our existing products and extend the same by innovating it into the areas which require it. Bangalore –The ideal place for an R&D

Bangalore has a legacy of being a hub for the R&D centers of several large companies. Our services are like an intersection between the applications and telecommunications. Hence, we found Bangalore to be more appropriate, as it suited the ecosystem that we have. Also, our talent in the U.S. has slightly diminished and we need people who are in the hardcore software sectors, people who are innovators, and those can give you solutions as per your market requirements. The talent pool available in Bangalore is definitely top of the class. The second reason is the innovation for the new generation systems that is specific to the Asian markets. This apart, we have global customers, who want to see our capabilities outside the U.S. Keeping all these factors in mind, Bangalore was the natural choice.
Beating the Challenges of an Emerging Market

We know India is a one of the biggest emerging markets and our first priority would be, to create an intimacy by knowing the appropriate places and using the capital in terms of relationships, into some of these banks here. The next thing would be to understand the ecosystem of the financial community. We think it is possible, because for starters several of the large banks we work with in the U.S., have their presence here. We believe we can work with those banks to get established, hence creating a foundation for us.

To summarize, we would establish a leading edge technology center that can help us develop solutions globally. We would then put the infrastructure in place to sell our products in India and other parts of the Asian markets. This is a global economy and if countries need to be successful, we cannot exist in just one country but exist globally specially when people are paying bills and moving money around the world.