Razorpay Joins ONDC, Becomes First Payment Gateway to Launch Payment Reconciliation Services for Buyer, Seller Apps

Full-stack payments platform Razorpay on Thursday said it is joining the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) ecosystem, thus becoming the first payment gateway in India to launch payment reconciliation services for buyer and seller apps.

“The fintech major becomes the first payment gateway to launch a payment reconciliation service for network participants (NPs) like buyers, sellers, and logistic partners, thereby streamlining the payment processes on ONDC, and providing them with an integrated single view of all their transactions,” Razorpay said in a statement.

Through this solution, Razorpay will facilitate ease of transacting on ONDC by timely routing settlement information for a given transaction and assisting NPs with settling funds. This is a solution that validates transactions and maintains audit trails to support documentation that will inform any dispute or discrepancy that may arise, the company said.

With an open network approach, where the buyers and sellers do not need to necessarily be on the same platform to be able to do a business transaction, ONDC will enable small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to access a larger buyer universe.

Shashank Kumar, managing director and co-founder of Razorpay, said, “We at Razorpay have always envisioned a world rich of businesses of all sizes, help them leverage digital payment technologies to sell more and grow faster. And so we are really excited to support the government in this shared vision of democratising e-commerce through the ONDC platform and helping Indian SMEs and kirana store owners reap the benefits of digital commerce.”

Thampy Koshy, CEO of ONDC, said, “We are thrilled to welcome Razorpay to ONDC. This is a significant step towards our goal of enabling seamless and secure digital commerce for everyone. With this addition, we continue to drive transparency and inclusion in the digital commerce space and we look forward to working with Razorpay towards achieving this vision.”

ONDC has crossed the 5,000 daily orders mark in the retail category, mainly foods and beverages (F&B) and grocery. With this, the platform records a 25-fold growth in the past two months.

What Is ONDC?

It is an open technology network based on open protocol and will enable local commerce across segments, such as mobility, grocery, food order and delivery, hotel booking and travel, to be discovered and engaged by any network-enabled application.

The platform allows buyers and sellers to connect and transact with each other online, regardless of what other applications they use. The buyers and sellers do not have to use the same platform or same mobile app to have a transaction. They can use different applications and still do business transactions.

The benefits of ONDC include access to more buyers; better discoverability of products and cost; autonomy on terms because of multiple choices for being digitally visible; lower cost of doing business; and more options for value chain services like logistics and fulfilment.

Read all the Latest Business News, Tax News and Stock Market Updates here