Mandar Agashe : The Man Who Brought a Revolution in the Indian Digital Payment System
Receiving rewards for paying your bills is like the smartest scheme ever to digitalize the payment system of our nation. Most of us make payments through UPI apps like Tez to earn digital scratch cards and cash backs. The growth of UPI has been unbelievable from only 92,000 transactions in August 2016 to 105 million transactions in November 2017. Today, almost everyone with a smartphone uses these UPI apps for the transaction. And, the biggest advantage of UPI is you don’t have to walk to your bank to deposit money into someone’s bank account. From transferring money to bank accounts to paying for movie tickets, UPI has become the most convenient and the most successful initiative in terms of online banking.
But, who is the person behind this massive success that turned the entire scenario of digital payment in no time?
Mandar Agashe, the founder of Sarvatra Technologies, a company that provides financial and payment solutions to the Indian banking sector, came up with the idea of Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and launched it in 2016.
Early Life of Mandar Agashe
In 24th May 1969, Agashe was born into an influential family of Mumbai to an Indian businessman, cricketer and philanthropist, Dnyaneshwar Agashe, and Rekha Gogte. Agashe had two other siblings, Ashutosh Agashe and Sheetal Agashe.
When Agashe was pursuing his B.E. degree in Computers, he created Musicurry.com, an online radio website. After completing his college, Agashe joined his family business in 1994 and started working in the firms. By 2000, he established EBZ Online in association with Oracle, followed by establishing Brihans Natural Products Ltd., and finally, Sarvatra Technologies in 2000.
Sarvatra Technologies
Agashe established his startup in Pune. The startup was basically to provide payment solutions and promote online banking through UPI and IMPS (Immediate Payment Service). The main goal of the company was to get the rural and semi-urban population connected to banking as well as the system of digital payment and get every citizen of India accustomed to EFT (Electronic funds transfer).
Since Mandar Agashe belonged to a family full of successful business tycoons, he had a clear idea of how the corporate sectors function. He wanted to come up with a solution that can be affordable to every single person out there and can easily carry out online transactions with minimal knowledge.
Oracle was the first company to invest in the strategies of Agashe, and eventually, investors like Vallabh Bhanshali and ICICI Bank participated in the following funding rounds. By 2018, the company brought 450 co-operative banks on National Financial Switch.
Agashe realized that both, the banks and the customers, faced a lot of issues during online transactions because of the poor connectivity. So, he provided the banks with SaaS-based technologies to enhance better performance, and also, reducing the operating cost at the same time.
The success of UPI and other payment solutions
After UPI was launched in 11th April 2016, the transaction volume increased unexpectedly. Transactions through the leading UPI apps like Google Tez, PhonePe and BHIM increased exponentially. By 5th December 2017, two months since the launch of Tez, the transaction volume hit 140 million, and the amount processed through PhonePe summed up to 100 crores per day.
Another advantage of Tez which accounts for 70% of the total UPI transaction is that the money one pays through it directly gets credited in one’s bank account instead of getting dropped into the wallets. By 2017, the apps that use UPI reached 20 million downloads from Play Store.
In the financial year 2017-2018, Mandar Agashe announced that they had a gross transaction value of 27,000, and by the next financial year, they will be going to make it 40,000 crores.
Agashe’s Musical Career
Apart from being an entrepreneur, a philanthropist and a successful businessman, Agashe is also a renowned singer. Releasing Musicurry.com was his first step towards the musical world, which led to launching his very own music album. His first role in the world of music was as a co-director with Pandit Hridayanath. He sang his first playback song with Asha Bhosle, and in 1998, his album ‘Nazar Nazar’ was recorded and released in Hindi and English. In 2005, another album, Jaan Le was released followed by 82 in 2016.
Annasha Dey is an NIT student, who apart from studying engineering is also a content writer. She has a great interest in photography, writing, reading novels, and travelling as well. She is a foodie who loves socializing and hanging out with her friends. She is also a trained Kathak dancer and a big fashion enthusiast. Dey also loves watching TV series, which includes F.R.I.E.N.D.S. and Big Bang Theory. To be a better writer she prefers to read more