Page 25 - Banking Finance September 2021

PRESS RELEASE

Fintech startup, Uni introduces Pay 1/3rd card

Fintech startup, Uni which is aiming to bring a range of lifestyle choice for our consumers. We want to provide
differentiated credit products for Indian consumers, today utmost convenience and flexibility, and be maniacally
announced the launch of its paylater card Pay 1/3rd. It is focused on making the customer experience richer.”
India’s longest interest-free credit product. The card
Pay 1/3rd card is designed especially keeping the mobile
automatically splits the transactions into 1/3rd allowing
generation in mind, who want a highly engaging, seamless,
consumers to pay their monthly spends in 3 parts over 3
and transparent credit product. On Uni, a customer is
months for NO EXTRA charges. With Pay 1/3rd, Uni aims to
instantly onboarded and will have complete transparency
intuitively solve the problem of short-term liquidity without
of their transactions with zero hidden fees. Currently, there
burdening consumers with high-interest fees. It also offers
is neither a joining fee nor annual charges. On the Pay 1/
customers the flexibility to ‘Pay in Full’ if they prefer not to 3rd app, one can track their spending in real-time, get a
pay in parts and in return, customers will enjoy a 1% reward
breakup of the spends made across categories and receive
in the form of cashback. Pay 1/3rd was piloted in June 2021
repayment alerts. Powered by Visa, Pay 1/3rd card is
and, in less than two months, has already crossed 10,000
accepted at millions of merchants (both online and offline)
customers. In the next one year, the company is looking to
across the country. The card can be used to order food,
target 1 million customers across India.
groceries, make e-commerce purchases or simply swipe the
Backed by Lightspeed Ventures and Accel India, Uni is one card at any offline outlet.
of the few fintech companies in India to raise a significantly
Commenting on the launch, T.R. Ramachandran, Group
large seed round ($18.5Mn) last year in October 2020, while
Country Manager, India and South Asia, Visa said, “With
still in stealth mode. The co-founding team consists of
over 220 million credit eligible consumers, there is great
seasoned fintech and financial services professionals, Nitin
potential for expanding access to credit through the
Gupta, Prateek Jindal and Laxmikant Vyas, who have rich
experience in building paylater and credit products at PayU, adoption of innovative, pay later products, especially
Ola Financial Services and Bajaj Finserv respectively. The amongst a rapidly digitizing consumer base. We are excited
team collectively felt the need to develop superior financial to partner with Uni on the launch of the Pay 1/3rd card and
products, especially in the paylater space which led them on its larger mission to democratize credit and drive
to launch the Pay 1/3rd card. affordability in India.”
Commenting on the launch, Nitin Gupta, Founder & CEO, In the next 2 months, Uni is also expected to launch a direct
Uni said, “Long term credit period is a felt need. We moved bank transfer feature, enabling consumers to even pay their
from debit to credit cards as the 40-50 day extension rent and school fees of their children. Consumers will also
seemed like a smarter solution to our payment needs. be able to choose affordable EMI plans if they need longer
However, we believe extending this to 3 months is anything repayment tenures ranging from 6, 9, 12 to 18+ months.
but natural if we want to make credit products more An in-app lifestyle store to redeem reward points is also on
accessible and democratic. We aim to make Pay 1/3rd a the anvil.

Can't pay power bills above Rs. 1k in coins: Court
Can you pay the entire electricity bill in coins? The Additional District Consumer Disputes Forum here, while deciding
an interesting case, responded in the negative, if the amount is over Rs1,000. The complainants in this case were
willing to pay pending power bills of Rs36,020 through coins of Re1, Rs2,5 and 10, but it was rejected by the judges,
clarifying that no one could deposit coins worth over Rs1,000 per day, as per the Coinage Act, 2011.
While defending the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL)'s move to sever power
connection of complainant Sandeep Thakre - who runs a grocery shop - and his mother Lakshmi, a bench comprising
president Sanjay Patil and member Avinash Prabhune dismissed their demand to pay arrears of Rs36,020 through
coins of Rs 1,000/day.

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