INTERVIEW: Infibeam Avenues is looking to acquire a point-of-sale company

• Infibeam is looking to acquire a fintech company that is into point of sale (POS) business, said Vishwas Patel, executive director at Infibeam Avenues in an interview with Business Insider.
• With more than 3 million merchant databases, the company has announced its plans in the lending space by partnering with banks and NBFCs who can finance credit to merchants.
• The gateway payment company aims at $28 billion of transaction processing value in the current financial year.

Ahmedabad-based Infibeam is looking to acquire fintech companies that are into point-of-sale (POS) business.

The company is eyeing to acquire a company in the POS terminal business with presence in 1000 cities and towns across India. “It is better to acquire a firm who has put all (POS terminal) infrastructure in place rather than building from scratch,” said Vishwas Patel, executive director at Infibeam Avenues in an interview with Business Insider

To put into perspective, startups like Pine Labs and Mswipe are POS companies that provide point-of-sale solutions including payments, inventory management and accounting softwares.

What is Point of Sale?

Point of sale (POS) is the time and place where a customer makes a payment for products or services at your store. A digital retail point of sale system typically includes a POS terminal that can read debit/credit cards and enable payments through a swipe. Service providers that provide both POS hardware and software solutions are called POS companies.

Patel said that the company already has a payment gateway -- CCAvenue -- that allows online merchants to process their all online transactions, but is lacking point of sale (POS) terminal business in order to complete its payment solutions portfolio.


Latest acquisition

In June last year, Infibeam had acquired Cardpay, which offers a spending management platform to corporations under the brand name “Grit.” The platform offers help with physical and virtual credit cards, invoice processing and early payments discounts.

Now to enter lending space

Further, with more than 3 million merchant databases, the company will enter the lending space by partnering with banks and non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) to provide loans to merchants.

R Srikanth, global president of finance at Infibeam, explained in an interview with Business Insider that its detailed database on the transaction history of merchants will help the banks to authenticate the customer before processing the loan.

While these small shopkeepers may or may not meet the requirements of a bank to prove their creditworthiness, Infibeam’s data on the shop’s revenue and cash flow will help it determine the same without the formal documentation that banks would seek.

Fintech startup BharatPe’s newly appointed chief executive officer (CEO), Suhail Sameer, also explained the same in an interview with Business Insider in June, right after its application for a banking licence with Centrum was approved.


There is a $100 billion lending market out there. Therefore growth acceleration is also huge. “With 2.6 million merchants even if 5-10% lending customers happens through banks we will make money on every loan,” Infibeam’s Srikanth added.

Confident to cross $30 billion transaction processing value in FY22

The payment gateway and e-commerce platform service provider’s profit rose by 18.14% year-on-year to ₹14.07 crore in June quarter while revenue reached ₹218.93 crore.

Infibeam Avenues aims at $28 billion of transaction processing value in the current financial year compared to $19 billion in FY21.

Awaiting response from RBI

Besides, the company has a pending application for a new umbrella entity (NUE) licence along with consortium partners Jio Platforms, the telecom giant owned by India’s richest man Mukesh Ambani, Google and Facebook to offer payments globally.

Reportedly, those who receive the license will set-up, manage and operate new payment systems in the retail space, including ATMs, points of sales, remittance services, and Aadhaar-based payments. The entities will also manage newer payment methods, standards, and technologies.

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