Startup Eyes WhatsApp For B2B Payments

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Social media platforms are eyeing new ways of doing business with other companies, mainly retailers looking to get within a close reach of their audience. These platforms have also taken to making it easier for consumers to purchase goods from retailers online through the addition of payment capabilities.

One payments company sees value in this business model for B2B commerce, too.

TranServ, an India-based digital payments startup, is now looking to capture more of the small and medium-sized business market with its services that allow companies to integrate payment options on both Facebook and mobile messaging service WhatsApp.

Unique to this offering is TranServ’s decision to also focus on B2B payments for these platforms.

According to reports in The Economic Times of India on Tuesday (Nov. 17), many of these social media-based transactions were occurring in the business-to-business space.

“We realized [when we launched in April of this year] that a large number of casual sellers and home-based businesses, especially run by women sellers, run on Facebook. Similarly, in areas such as textiles, the majority of the merchants engage in B2B transactions through WhatsApp,” said TranServ Cofounder Aditya Gupta in an interview with the publication.

[bctt tweet=”The majority of merchants engage in B2B transactions through WhatsApp.”]

According to the startup, about 1,500 of its 2,500 corporate customers are using payment options for Facebook and WhatsApp provided by TranServ. Gupta said that the company is anticipating the onboarding of 5,000 merchants every month by the end of the quarter.

He added that, moving forward, the startup will be looking to tackle the friction small businesses see with cash-on-delivery sales and introduce a same-day payment service for its business customers later this month. That solution, Gupta told reporters, is expected to double TranServ’s volume of transactions it processes.