MissCallPay is a Gujarat-based Fintech Startup founded in 2017 by Mitesh Thakker. India’s first voice-based Payment Company running on UPI 123Pay, operated by Minkville Innoventures Pvt. Ltd. The team has designed a payment solution simply keeping in mind the feature phone users and non-tech savvy people using a MissCall which is a known habit to entire masses in Bharat.
In 2017 when demonetization happened, Mr Mitesh was travelling to his native place in the Kutch district of Gujarat. He found the commotion, with people forming long lines outside banks and ATMs, rather disturbing. That incident gives rise to the MissCallPay, where people do payments hassle-free and without internet. MissCallPay aims to bring convenient solutions to tap into this vast untapped market of nearly a billion users in India.
Founder Mitesh Thakker shares, “Our sole aim behind this venture is to promote a cashless economy as there are a lot of loopholes in a cash economy. Farmers and small shopkeepers doing business in cash are not able to get any loans from financial institutions. This is because there is no or little proof of their transactions. They borrow money from moneylenders or other such exploitative apps. Formal credit is impossible without financial history, which makes them non-creditworthy. Credit has to be disbursed based on financial transactions for the economy’s growth. This is a critical problem for the Indian economy and UPI 123PAY is a significant move to solve this major issue”.
Being one of the four-player chosen by RBI for a digital solution, Mitesh Thakker stated, “It brings us tremendous joy to be a part of the Introduction of UPI 123Pay. I appreciate the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) for believing in our innovation to bring financial inclusion and frictionless transactions to rural Bharat”.
‘I am privileged to work on an innovative solution that is the very first in the country makes me both fortunate and excited. Moreover, this solution removes the barrier between the digitally literate and illiterate, making it another major driver which fuels my excitement for this start-up. I am obsessed with managing growth; we have a much larger opportunity to solve and need to build capability in terms of people & processes to manage. Everything needs to be rightly orchestrated; though MissCallPay have a great set of advisors & team on board, the generous challenge ahead keeps me awake at night’
“India’s economy is certainly a 5+ trillion in the next 5 years and MissCallPay will have contributed significantly to the growth of digital transactions. It is also feasible that currency notes and coins could become collectors, similar to how postage stamps are now. MissCallPay might also operate in other regions, promoting economic development, social progress and financial inclusion”, he added.
MissCallPay functions as follows: To start a transaction, one must make a missed call to a merchant-specific number. Following this, the user receives a call back asking them to confirm the merchant’s name and amount over a voice call in their native tongue. Once they have confirmed the transaction by entering their UPI PIN for their Bank account linked with UPI, the transaction is processed and SMS notifications are sent to both the payer and payee.
