Category: business

ICICI Bank launches contactless payment solution through iMobile Pay

Mumbai: ICICI Bank today announced the launch of a contactless payment service through its banking app, iMobile Pay, that enables customers to tap their smartphones to pay at POS (Point of Sale) machines of merchant outlets. The service offers improved convenience to over 1.5 crore debit and credit card customers of the Bank as they will no longer need to carry their cards for payments at retail stores. Based on the Near Field Communications (NFC) technology, the innovative payment service empowers customers to create digital versions of their physical ICICI Bank debit and credit cards on the iMobile Pay app. Using the digital cards, customers can initiate electronic payments at merchant outlets from NFC enabled Android smartphones by just waving their phone near a contactless POS device.

Mr. Sudipta Roy, Head- Unsecured Assets, ICICI Bank said, “We, at ICICI Bank, focus on technological innovations to offer unique, fast and convenient solutions to our customers. We were first to introduce ‘Tap to Pay’ facility five years ago by digitising cards and offering secured contactless payment through our digital wallet app, Pockets. Now we have extended this facility through our mobile app, iMobile Pay. This contactless mobile payment solution offers cashless payments to the Bank’s customers using just their smartphones, thereby eliminating the need to carry cash or debit and credit cards.

We believe, with ‘Tap to Pay’ payment solution, customers will experience enhanced convenience as it provides instant, safe and secure payments. Additionally, the solution offers enhanced security as the customer’s card details are not shared during the transaction process and are stored virtually in the Bank’s secure cloud server. We thank our partners Visa and Comviva who have enabled this collaboration. We will continue on our endeavour to improve cards payment experience for our customers through innovation and excellence with focus on safety and security.”

The facility of ‘Tap to Pay’ through iMobile Pay is now available on Visa cards and it will soon be activated on Mastercard cards too.

Mr. T. R. Ramachandran, Group Country Manager, India and South Asia, Visa said, “Contactless payments are becoming the go-to way of paying instantly and securely at merchant outlets, today accounting for 1 out of every 2 face-to-face Visa transactions in Asia Pacific. We are delighted to strengthen our strategic and innovation-focused partnership with ICICI Bank by enabling contactless payments on iMobile Pay banking app, embedding the ease of tapping to pay into the mobile banking experience for millions of Visa cardholders of the Bank.”

Mr. Srinivas Nidugondi, EVP and Chief Growth and Transformation Officer, Comviva, said, “We are thrilled to partner with ICICI Bank to modernize payments and evolve the digital landscape in India. As one of the world’s leading digital payment platform provider, Comviva is extremely excited to offer swift, secure and convenient payment experience to ICICI Bank customers. iMobile Pay ‘Tap to Pay’ will accelerate the growth of safe and hygienic contactless payments and contribute towards India’s growing digital economy.”

To avail this service, customers need to update the new version of the iMobile Pay app from Google Play Store on their NFC enabled smartphones of OS- Android 6 and above. Customers will have to do a one-time activation through iMobile Pay to start using the ‘Tap to Pay’ service and then make the payment securely and conveniently at retail stores. As per the RBI guidelines, customers can make payments upto Rs 5,000 per transaction with just tapping or waving the phone near the POS device. For transactions above Rs. 5,000, customers will have to enter their card PIN along with waving the phone near the POS device.

Customers can follow below given easy steps to avail the service:

1. One time activation:

• The customer has to login to iMobile Pay app and click on ‘Tap to Pay’ icon on the login page or ‘Shop’ section.
• Thereafter, the customer needs to select registered debit and credit cards to make a digital version and then click on ‘I Agree’ to accept the terms & conditions.
• The customers can create virtual cards against each of their ICICI Bank Visa credit and debit cards

2. Making a payment:

• Log in to iMobile Pay app and click on ‘Tap to Pay’ on login page or ‘Shop’ section
• Select a virtual Visa card to make the payment and wave or tap the phone near the NFC enabled POS device
• A message of ‘Payment initiated successfully’ appears on the phone confirming the transaction

For news and updates, visit www.icicibank.com and follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ICICIBank

Unicommerce Emerging e-commerce segments 2021 Report:

Unicommerce Emerging e-commerce segments 2021 Report: 143% growth for Beauty and personal care segments and 119% e-commerce growth for Health and Pharma sectors in the first eight months of 2021

New Delhi, 6th October 2021: Unicommerce‌‌, India’s‌ ‌largest‌ ‌e-commerce‌ ‌focused‌ ‌supply-chain‌ ‌SaaS‌ ‌technology‌ ‌platform, unveiled a first-ever industry trends report on the emerging categories that are changing the dynamics of the e-commerce retail industry. The report titled ‘Emerging e-commerce segments 2021’ highlights segments that had a negligible online presence before the pandemic but have swiftly grown in the last 18 months to increase their overall e-commerce share and become emerging e-commerce segments.

The report further throws light on interesting trends across new segments such as FMCG, Beauty & personal care, Health & Pharma, Home Decor & Furniture, and Sports and Fitness equipment. It also details out the sub-segments under these categories, highlighting how these new segments are growing their e-commerce presence, along with the drivers for growth potential in the coming years. The report analyses e-commerce trends for the period of January-August 2021 and January-August-2020 with a sample size of over 40 Mn orders.

Speaking on the launch of the report Kapil Makhija, CEO, Unicommerce said “The pandemic has altered consumer buying patterns and accelerated the adoption of technology amongst brands at a faster pace. Rising e-commerce adoption has led to the birth of many new segments in the e-commerce industry that were insignificant until last year. Our aim with this report is to showcase the evolving trends in these emerging categories along with detailing the growth trends of sub-segments under each category. An important finding from the report is the phenomenal growth of brand websites and marketplaces and how it’s impacting all these emerging segments. We received an overwhelming response to our previous reports and we are confident that this report will also help e-tailers in understanding the emerging segments and adapt well to the changing dynamics of the e-commerce industry. We are committed to helping e-tailers in their e-commerce journey and this report helps in furthering our mission.”

Some of the key findings of the reports are:

FMCG becoming an integral part of e-commerce

FMCG is one segment that started making news right from the beginning of lockdown in March 2020. The FMCG e-commerce sector saw a major spike at the beginning of lockdown and it was considered as a temporary phenomenon given the conventional nature of the industry, and consumers were expected to go back to old ways of shopping after some time. Today even after 18 months, the FMCG segment continues to grow at a rapid pace. The changing consumer behavior supported with increasing e-commerce adoption across the country has led to an exorbitant order volume growth of 74% for the FMCG segment for the period of January-August 2021, over the corresponding period a year ago.

The FMCG segment can be broadly divided into two categories and both segments reported almost similar growth as the overall category: The Food and beverages segment reported 72% order volume growth in January-August 2021 as compared to the same period last year, while the organic food segment reported a 74% rise in order volume during the same period.

Beauty & Personal care growing exponentially

The beauty and Personal care segment was growing rapidly even before the pandemic. The pandemic further accelerated the growth of the industry and the new age digital companies were able to efficiently meet the rising consumer demand with automated supply-chain and digitizations across various cycles of the operation. An increasing number of consumers are now buying beauty and personal care products online, the segment reported 143% order volume growth, highest amongst all the emerging segments.

The segment can be broadly divided into three key segments: The first one is Face care which has always been the most important sub-segment with the widest range of product portfolio and is the real growth driver for the segment with 179% order volume growth in January-August 2021 as compared to the same period last year. The second segment is Haircare, which has garnered a lot of consumer attention and has reported a strong order volume growth of 91% during the above-mentioned time frame. The third segment is Body care, while it’s an important segment it reported a slower order volume growth of 48% in January-August 2021 vs January-August 2020

Beauty and personal care is an interesting category where marketplaces are the real growth drivers with 163% order volume growth for the period of January-August 2021 as compared to the same period last year. One of the key reasons that marketplaces are driving faster growth over brand websites is the gaining popularity and stronghold of platforms such as Nykaa within the Beauty and personal care segment. Myntra has also started extensively focusing on the beauty segments in the last year, with beauty-focused sale events and promotions. Interestingly, brand websites are also catching up with 141% order volume growth. This showcase the rising acceptance of new D2C brands amongst consumers

Health & Pharma: Sector with immense growth potential

It’s a category that is growing exponentially, especially at a time when there is a major focus on building strength and immunity in people. Health and pharma sector continues to grow and reported 119% order volume growth in Jan-Aug 2021 as compared to the same period last year.

Nutraceutical is a subsegment in Health and Pharma that has garnered a lot of attention with its strong growth in the last one year. It includes dietary supplements and herbal powders and medicines with vitamins, minerals, and plants with specific medicinal properties to improve immunity and give necessary nutrition to the body. The nutraceutical segment reported 143% order volume growth from January-August 2021 as compared to the same period last year. They have been in high demand as consumers are focused on building strong immunity against COVID-19.

Home Decor & Furniture and Sports & Fitness Equipments

E-commerce is also helping the unorganized categories such as- home decor and sports & fitness industry to become part of organized retail and its getting the necessary attention from consumers. The majority of sales in these sectors is still a part of unorganized retail with small shop owners in local market.

The home decor industry growth reported an order volume growth of 51% with a significant GMV growth of 108% leading to the highest average order value growth of 38%. Due to work from home, a lot of consumers ordered office furniture last year and it’s one of the key factors driving strong growth for the home decor and furniture segment.

Sports goods refer to equipment and clothes that are required for participating in sports. It’s a small industry and at a nascent stage of the e-commerce business and it holds immense growth potential with 66% order volume growth, along with muted GMV growth of 18%. This sharp decline in Average order volume can be attributed to limited outdoor activity and an increasing number of consumers ordering essentials for workouts at home.

Tier-I cities are the traditional trendsetter of Emerging categories

It’s usually observed that every sector in e-commerce has a trickle-down effect. Any new sector first starts gaining traction in the metropolitan and Tier I cities, and later Tier II and Tier III cities gain traction. This has been observed in mature categories such as Fashion and Electronics. Before the pandemic, the emerging categories used to hold a very small part of the overall e-commerce business, with limited consumers, therefore the market share divide between Tier I, Tier II, and Tier III cities was almost equal. In the first eight months of 2020, Tier I cities contributed 39% market share, followed by 38% share of Tier III cities and 23% of Tier II cities. However, the market shares changed significantly in 2021, with 161% growth of Tier I cities contributing 52% of the overall market share of the emerging segments. Followed by 85% growth of TierII cities contributing 19% of the market share and 75% growth of Tier III cities with 29% market share.

Unicommerce is uniquely positioned to provide e-commerce supply chain technology cloud solutions to help industry players of all sizes to manage their business efficiently. Unicommerce has worked with over 15000 retail brands across sectors and in the last one year, the company has onboarded 15,000+ clients across sectors such as FMCG, Beauty and Personal Care, Health and pharma, Agriculture, Homedecor, Nutraceutical Fashion, Electronics among others. Over the last few years, Unicommerce has been able to establish itself as a preferred choice of companies that are establishing their e-commerce operations and its sector-agnostic platform can easily be adjusted based on the specific requirements of any industry. Unicommerce platform processes over 20% of India’s e-commerce volume, manages over 1500 stores and 6000+ warehouses, and processes over 1 Mn orders daily amounting to USD 5 Bn+ GMV annually.

About Unicommerce

Unicommerce eSolutions is India’s leading e-commerce focused supply chain SaaS platform. Established nine years ago, Unicommerce is a market leader processing over 20% of e-commerce volumes in the country. The company has disrupted the e-commerce and retail industry with clients like Myntra, Jack Jones, Adidas, Vero Moda, Forever New, Marico, Netmeds, Healthkart, Mamaearth, mCaffeine, Sugar Cosmetics, Lakme and Nivea, and many more. The company also started working with clients in international operations with clients in Middle-east, Southeast Asia, and South Asia. The company has been profitable for over four years and aims to further deepen its presence in the country and expand aggressively in international markets.

Employee benefits & insurtech platform ‘Pazcare’ raises $3.5 million in seed round led by BEENEXT & 3one4 Capital

Bengaluru, October 6, 2021: Employee benefits and insurtech platform Pazcare on Wednesday announced that it raised $3.5 million (INR 25 crore) as part of its seed round led by BEENEXT, along with 3one4 Capital, and other investors. The round also witnessed the participation of angel investors, including Kunal Shah (CRED), Ashneer Grover (BharatPe), Aprameya R (Koo), Zishaan Hayath (Toppr), and existing investors Ashish Hemrajani (BookMyShow) and Haresh Chawla(True North), among other marquee investors.

Founded in 2020 by Sanchit Malik and Manish Mishra in Bengaluru, Pazcare is redefining the way employee benefits are managed in India. It enables real-time management of employee benefits and streamlines them in one place. For Pazcare, which is growing 100% month-on-month, these funds will help propel their growth among new categories of customers, accelerating product development and hiring across all functions.

India has over 1 million employers looking to provide benefits such as group term life insurance, health insurance, doctor consultations, accident coverage and other health & financial benefits to their 100 million+ employees. The employee benefits market in the country is a multi-billion dollar industry growing 18% year-on-year. Most employers in the ecosystem are looking for a novel solution to reform legacy issues pertaining to policy & claims management and having to liaise with multiple vendors.

“Through our world-class tech platform, we are trying to create a real-time user experience, which makes it extremely easy for the employer as well as the employee in personalising and managing their benefits. Over the next three years, we aim to be a leading full-stack employee benefits marketplace and platform that touches the lives of over 3 million employees,” said Sanchit Malik, the co-founder and CEO of Pazcare.

“We are glad to collaborate with Sanchit and Manish, second-time founders who are disrupting the fragmented employee benefits space in India in terms of ease of use. We are excited to partner with Pazcare and its global applicability as they demonstrate success with their customers with high NPS,” said Dirk Van Quaquebeke, Managing Partner at BEENEXT.

“Sanchit and Manish have a very product-led, unique take on how employee benefits need to be managed and delivered. They have shown amazing vision and product execution so far and we are incredibly excited to partner with them on their growth journey as they scale up this platform,” said Anurag Ramdasan, Partner, 3one4 Capital.

Within a span of just seven months, Pazcare has achieved significant growth and has already partnered with over 150 employers, including Betterplace, Vedantu, WazirX, Payback, Mamaearth, and Toppr etc., touching the lives of over 80,000 users currently. The company intends to onboard over 500 corporates over the next two quarters.

Pazcare provides employers and their employees with flexible and personalised benefits, thereby transforming the employer-employee relationship at scale. Among the host of benefits that Pazcare provides are benefits and insurance management, mental health solutions, virtual doctor consultations, comprehensive blood tests, etc. Pazcare’s employer dashboard and employee app make managing the benefits extremely convenient. Over the coming years, Pazcare also aims to widen its offerings beyond healthcare and be one-stop-shop for all kinds of employee benefits.

The current round of institutional seed investment in Pazcare comes close on the heels of a pre-seed round in June 2021, when the company raised undisclosed funding from angel investors and leading Indian entrepreneurs, including Ashish Hemrajani and Parikshit Dhar (BookMyShow), Haresh Chawla(True North) and Mohit Garg (MindTickle), some of whom have also doubled down on this round.

ExaGrid Reports Record Bookings and Revenue in Q3 2021

ExaGrid®, the industry’s only Tiered Backup Storage solution, today announced that it had an all-time record bookings and revenue in the quarter ending September 30, 2021. This accomplishment was on the back of ExaGrid’s record-breaking quarters in Q1 and Q2 2021, increasing both bookings and revenue to a new all-time high.

ExaGrid’s revenue grew over 57% as compared to Q3 2020, and grew 10.4% sequentially from Q2 2021 to Q3 2021. In addition, ExaGrid was cash positive in the quarter for fourth quarter in row. ExaGrid added a record 153 new customers in Q3 2021, including 43 six- and seven-figure deals, and has more than 3,100 active customers that use ExaGrid Tiered Backup Storage to protect their data. ExaGrid’s growth is accelerating, and the company is hiring over 60 additional inside and field sales staff worldwide.

“IT organizations are truly understanding the difference that ExaGrid brings to the backup storage market with its Tiered Backup Storage approach. ExaGrid reduces the cost of backup storage while maintaining performance and scalability. All of the first-generation deduplication appliances such as Dell EMC Data Domain, HPE StoreOnce, and Veritas 5340, are slow for backup, slow for restores and don’t scale well. Low-cost primary storage disk is too expensive for long-term backup storage. You need to have an integrated approach that brings the performance of backing up to disk but also data deduplication for efficient long-term retention backup storage. ExaGrid’s Tiered Backup Storage provides the best of both worlds,” said Bill Andrews, President and CEO of ExaGrid.

ExaGrid appliances have a network-facing disk-cache Landing Zone where the most recent backups are written without inline deduplication for fast backups and are stored in an undeduplicated format for fast restores. ExaGrid uses scale-out architecture, which maintains a fixed-length backup window and also eliminates expensive and disruptive forklift upgrades and product obsolescence. ExaGrid’s Adaptive Deduplication technology deduplicates the data into a non-network-facing repository where deduplicated data is stored for longer-term retention, often for weeks, months and years. The combination of a non-network-facing tier (virtual air gap) plus delayed deletes with ExaGrid’s Retention Time-Lock feature, and immutable data objects, guards against the backup data being deleted or encrypted.

Highlights of Q3 2021:

• Strong competitive win rate at 75%
• Brought on more than 150 new customers
• Record revenue in the US, Canada, Latin America, EMEA and APAC
• 43 six and seven-figure new customer deals
• Company remains cash positive over the last four quarters
• More than 3,100 customers protect their data with ExaGrid Tiered Backup Storage
• ExaGrid Tiered Backup Storage – Built for Backup

“ExaGrid realized that disk is too expensive for longer-term retention, that deduplication in the backup application impedes performance and does not bring enough deduplication, that inline deduplication appliances lower the cost of storage but reduce backup and restore performance, and that the backup window grows as the data grows. ExaGrid determined that customers need to have it all: a front-end-disk cache Landing Zone tier for fast backups and restores, a repository tier for long-term deduplicated data, a scale-out architecture to keep the backup window fixed in length as data grows and eliminates forklift upgrades and planned product obsolescence, and an integrated ransomware recovery solution with a non-network-facing tier, delayed deletes, and immutable data objects all in one single integrated approach. ExaGrid’s Tiered Backup Storage is that approach,” said Andrews.

ExaGrid provides Tiered Backup Storage with a front-end disk-cache Landing Zone, the Performance Tier, which writes data directly to disk for the fastest backups, and restores directly from disk for the fastest restores and VM boots. The long-term retention data is tiered to a deduplicated data repository, the Retention Tier, to reduce the amount of retention storage and resulting cost. This two-tiered approach provides the fastest backup and restore performance with lowest cost storage efficiency.

In addition, ExaGrid provides a scale-out architecture where appliances are simply added as data grows. Each appliance includes processor, memory and network ports, so as data grows, all resources required are available to maintain a fixed-length backup window. This scale-out storage approach eliminates expensive forklift upgrades, and allows for mixing appliances of different sizes and models in the same scale-out system, which eliminates product obsolescence while protecting IT investments up front and over time.

Community Values and Reduced Risks Key to New Guiding Principles

Oak Ridge, TN: Leaders in Energy and Preservation (LEAP) today released Voluntary Practices for Non-Regulated Energy Development Projects. These practices put into action LEAP’s guiding principles for responsible development of energy projects that respect historic places, cultural resources and community voices. LEAP encourages these principles to be adopted voluntarily across the energy industry by companies who share community values and seek to reduce risks to their projects.

“Over the past several years, we have listened to energy producers and project developers, and have worked in concert with cultural resource managers to develop voluntary principles that are easy to implement and will make a big difference for communities,” explained Chuck Niquette, LEAP Board Chair.

The LEAP Principles are the combined input of more than 100 volunteers from the energy industry, historic preservation advocacy community, cultural resource management industry, and communication specialists. LEAP’s Principles are designed to help developers reduce impacts to historic properties and cultural resources on projects regardless of whether they are subject to federal permitting requirements. Community values and voices can affect project outcomes and the principles underscore that fact.

LEAP’s Principles promote an integrated process for consideration of heritage resources within the proven modern methods of energy development. They also provide a decision-making framework that does not mandate a particular outcome, and their approach provides a crucial flexibility for industry that can be incorporated into existing systems. The value proposition is clear – LEAP’s voluntary principles have the potential to reduce the risk of project delay, budget overruns, and reputational damage, and should be an important part of an energy company’s environmental, social, and governance policies.

LEAP is actively seeking partners from the energy industry and heritage management firms to join them and adopt the LEAP Principles. Read the full document here: www.energyandpreservation.org/principles and contact Lesley Cusick, LEAP Managing Director to discuss LEAP’s Principles – including how to implement them in a graduated manner, tailored to your company’s needs.

About LEAP: Leaders in Energy and Preservation (LEAP) is a coalition of energy companies and historic preservation groups promoting best practices for early planning that deliver efficient energy projects through responsible heritage management. Our best practices and technological innovations help energy companies manage risk and plan successful projects that protect significant heritage resources such as archaeological sites, historic properties, and sites of cultural importance to Indigenous people.

Apex Companies, LLC Acquires CME Engineering LP and CME Operations LP

Rockville, MD: Apex Companies, LLC (Apex), a national leader in engineering, water resources and environmental services, today announced the acquisition of CME Engineering LP and CME Operations LP, regional providers in civil, mining, water, and environmental engineering.

Based in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, CME brings nearly 60 professionals including engineers, geologists, surveyors, and water/wastewater treatment plant operators. The firm serves clients across the Mid-Atlantic with offices in Greensburg, Somerset, and Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1999, CME’s reputation for technical excellence, reliability, and innovation has led to a loyal client base and a robust portfolio of repeat business.

“We are excited to be joining a firm that is also dedicated to exceeding client expectations and providing best in class solutions for the most pressing environmental and engineering challenges of today,” said Sean Isgan, CME Co-Founder & CEO. “Apex and CME provide each other with complimentary services that will allow us to expand our customer base and service lines. A future with Apex provides exciting opportunities for our staff and for our clients whose needs are ever expanding.”

Mr. Isgan will remain with the firm and work hand in hand with Apex leadership on integration and future expansion of the business under the Apex brand.

“CME adds new mission-critical capabilities in engineering, water/wastewater and power. This and the diverse talent that Sean and his team bring to Apex builds upon our recent investments in infrastructure services, and further diversifies our capabilities in engineering, water and environmental services,” said Apex President & CEO, David Fabianski. “The management core at CME is very strong and the entire staff is incredibly passionate about what they do. We look forward to welcoming them to Apex.”

RFID Wooden Key Cards Creating More Sustainability for Hotels

Dubai, United Arab Emirates, October 05, 2021: Each year, a typical hotel with 200 rooms uses about 12,000 non-biodegradable key cards, creating approximately 1,300 tons of plastic waste that ends up in landfills.

In an effort to not only promote sustainability but provide a carbon-footprint reducing solution, Print Plast has launched a few plastic-free options for RFID hotel key cards.

Hotel key cards that utilize the latest RFID industry practices enable all hotel brands to take value-added measures to be more environmentally friendly. Besides being the greenest option in sustainability, wooden key cards will also impress your hotel guests with their unique aesthetic appeal.

Wooden cards, an eco-friendly alternative to PVC, can now be found in Print Plast’s line of products. The company offers a wide variety of wood material options, such as Bamboo, which is durable and ecologically sustainable, and Birch, an ultra-flat wood ideal for printing inks and magnetic stripe printing. Walnut, Maple, Cherry, Beech, Sapele are additional, stylish yet natural options. With a unique handcrafted appearance, every material provides a special touch to a hotel’s key cards.

Hotel brands may choose to engrave the product on both sides of the product, or to imprint the product using color ink.

Wooden key cards are available with RFID chip technologies compatible with all major locks and access control systems. This is ideal as security doesn’t have to be compromised in creating sustainable, eco-friendlier solutions.

The alternative is an easy solution when deciding to dedicate to avoiding the prolonged use of plastic key cards (adding to plastic litter and pollution) yet garnering attention and appeal from guests. These innovative, sustainable wooden key cards allow hotels and their guests to help stop plastics use while maintaining quality security, functionality and impressive design.

About Print Plast
With a Swiss joint venture company, PrintPlast began producing cards in 1989. Print Plast has performed the best services and offers the best solutions that provide ultimate privacy protection, professional consulting and customer satisfaction.

The experts at Print Plast manufacture hotel key cards and understand the importance of satisfying guests. To help you deliver the best possible experience to your guests, Print Plast will consult on the art and design of your card artworks. Additionally, Print Plast will then oversee manufacture from start to finish. Likewise, Print Plast must ensure the chip readability/encoding, read-range, and durability of every card to guarantee that 100% of them will not only work but will function for years to come. Providing a 100% performance guarantee simplifies card purchasing for you (hotel management), while more importantly, enhancing your guests’ experience.