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Also in this letter:
■ Zomato to pilot health cover for families of delivery partners
■ Elon Musk, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal postpone depositions
■ A billion-dollar fund for 2/3-wheeler EV financing is on the anvil
Razorpay forays into rewards management space with PoshVine acquisition
Digital payments and financial services platform Razorpay has acquired loyalty management platform PoshVine for an undisclosed amount and forayed into the loyalty and rewards management space.
This is Razorpay’s fourth acquisition this year and the seventh overall. It comes close on the heels of its $200-million acquisition of offline point-of-sale (PoS) firm Ezetap in August this year.
Deal details: Under the deal, PoshVine’s 36-member team will join Razorpay and operate its loyalty and rewards vertical. With this acquisition, Razorpay is expected to help banks increase customer retention for their credit offerings through new merchant offers; allow merchants to automate the process of pitching discount offers to banks; provide timely and customised offers to customers while allowing them to pay through credit points of banks.
Razorpay also expects to enhance the offline shopping experience for customers by integrating PoshVine’s loyalty and reward offerings on its point-of-sale network which it acquired through Ezetap.
PoshVine, a natural fit? For PoshVine it will get access to Razorpay’s large base of over 8 million merchants.
The company’s customer base in Southeast Asia is expected to bolster Razorpay’s presence in the region following its international foray in February with the acquisition of Malaysian fintech firm Curlec.
Quote Unquote: “ We continue to see a bigger opportunity to work with banks and help them upgrade their financial infrastructure. While banks can acquire a customer for their credit card offering, they are unsure if it will be used. That’s where we see the rewards and loyalty play coming in, where it is critical to provide the right offer in the right context,” Shashank Kumar, managing director and cofounder of Razorpay told us in an interaction.
Zomato to pilot Rs 3 lakh health cover for families of delivery workers
Food delivery and restaurant discovery company Zomato is piloting a health cover worth Rs 3 lakh for the families of delivery workers – who have been with the organisation for two-three years – as a loyalty benefit. The programme is being piloted in New Delhi, Hyderabad, and Ahmedabad.
Widening the safety net: The company said it would allocate Rs 10,00,000 as life cover along with a dedicated amount for funeral expenses in case of the death of a delivery partner.
Zomato said that all information regarding the benefits is available on the delivery partner app in the language of their choice. It said for any injury causing temporary disability, it offers a loss of pay of Rs 525 per day which can go up to Rs 50,000. “This is our attempt to ensure delivery partners prioritise their health and are able to fulfill their household responsibilities as they recover before returning to their gig,” the company said.
Young & Financially stressed: While the life cover is already in place, Zomato’s clarification comes amid news of numerous instances of deaths and accidents of its delivery workers while on the job. A recent survey on the state of gig workers, which included delivery executives from Swiggy and Zomato, found that gig workers were earning less each year and were unable to save money. About 47% of respondents in the survey said they had no form of insurance.
In recent months, there have been protests by delivery workers of food and grocery delivery platforms against poor payouts, reduced incentives, and safety concerns.
Other challenges: According to an Indian Express report on August 9, 28-year-old Narender Kumar died in a road accident in New Delhi’s Badarpur area after delivering an order for Zomato. Earlier in January this year, another delivery boy with Zomato was shot dead in Rewari when he went to serve an order in Ansal township in Sector 19.
Other stabbing and road accidents of Swiggy and Zomato delivery workers have also occurred, and families have had to navigate a complex claim process, according to a story by the news publication The Morning Context.
A billion-dollar fund for 2/3-wheeler EV financing is on the anvil
The Indian government, World Bank, and Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) are set to launch a $1-billion fund to provide guarantees against loan default to lenders financing the purchase of electric two- and three-wheelers, people aware of the development told us.
The Niti Aayog is the facilitating agency for the project, aimed at facilitating faster and easier financing of electric vehicles.
Verbatim: The entities will initially set up a $300 million “first loss risk-sharing instrument”, a person involved in the talks told us. “The funds would be available for all financial institutions to access as a first-loss instrument,” he said. “The instrument would act as a hedging mechanism, for banks to access in case of defaults of loans on purchase of electric vehicles. This is expected to bring down the cost of financing EVs by 10-12%,” said the person.
Changing gears: SIDBI has of late been spearheading India’s efforts towards sustainable development goals by tying up with multiple small and medium companies to increase energy efficiency in their operations.
Earlier, the State Bank of India was being considered as the programme lead, but it moved out of the partnership as banks still consider EV as a risky segment. SBI moved out of the partnership as banks still consider EV as a risky segment.
TWEET OF THE DAY
Elon Musk and Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal postpone depositions before Oct. 17 trial
Tesla CEO Elon Musk won a reprieve from questioning by Twitter lawyers Monday, according to several press reports. The billionaire had been scheduled to give a deposition in his high-stakes court fight with Twitter over whether he has to follow through with his agreement to buy the social platform for $44 billion.
What happened? Musk’s questioning was postponed to a future date. Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, who was also scheduled to face Musk lawyers on Monday, likewise postponed his deposition, according to a person who was briefed on the matter, reported AP.
The Musk postponement was reported by several media publications such as Bloomberg, Reuters, and the Wall Street Journal, all of which attributed the information to anonymous sources.
Unusual delay: Court watchers said that such postponements are not unusual ahead of major pretrial hearings. A hearing on several significant pretrial motions is scheduled for Tuesday.
Both men were expected to answer questions posed by opposing lawyers ahead of the October 17 trial that will determine who is at fault for the seeming collapse of Musk’s Twitter bid.
Allegations still loom: Whistleblower Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, who was fired by Twitter in January and was the company’s security head, last month accused the social media firm of falsely claiming it had a solid security plan and making misleading statements about its defenses against hackers and spam accounts
Bosses are scared employees slack off in work-from-home: Microsoft’s Satya Nadella
Microsoft chief executive officer (CEO) Satya Nadella has joined the list of top tech executives who have opined on the perils of the work-from-home culture. According to Windows Central, Nadella commented that some bosses are skeptical of work-from-home culture as they are scared that their employees slack off while working from home.
CEO Speak: “We have to get past what we describe as ‘productivity paranoia,’ because all of the data we have shows that 80% plus of the individual people feel they’re very productive – except their management thinks that they’re not productive,” Nadella was quoted as saying. “That means there is a real disconnect in terms of the expectations and what they feel,” he added.
Yes, but: The CEO referred to a major survey across its organisation about working from home. In that survey, 87% of Microsoft employees feel they are more productive while working from home, whereas 80% of Microsoft’s managerial layer think workers are less productive.
Moonlighting woes: While food delivery companies such as Swiggy have announced an “industry-first” policy of allowing on-payroll employees to take up work or projects apart from their regular employment, others such as Tech Mahindra’s chief executive officer C P Gurnani said he had no objection to employees taking up secondary jobs. Wipro chief Rishad Premji has openly expressed his distaste for the same as his firm recently fired 300 employees found moonlighting.
Related read: TCS staff told to return to office thrice a week
Today’s ETtech Top 5 newsletter was curated by Gaurab Dasgupta in New Delhi and Megha Mishra in Mumbai. Graphics and illustrations by Rahul Awasthi.
