Citrus: India's Answer to Paypal?

Abstract

It is widely acknowledged that online payments in India is broken — on average, only 6 or 7 out of every 10 transactions succeed (Khan 2013). Citrus is a startup payments company based in Mumbai that is trying to change all of this. A senior executive at Sun Direct a prominent satellite television (DTH) operator in South India, credits Citrus with reducing failure rates for online payments to Sun Direct from 30 to 40 percent to less than 25. In revenue terms, this can be huge for companies that depend on online payments. According to Kunal Bahl, CEO of Snapdeal, an ecommerce ‘daily deal’ portal, even a one percent increase in transaction success rate adds about $3 million (19 crores) to Snapdeal’s revenues. Online retail payments have yet to capture the consumer market in India. This is primarily because Indians are uncomfortable with shopping online — they like to see what they are buying, know who they are dealing with and, whenever possible, pay in cash. A study by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) reveals that 33% of Indians internet users just do not trust the internet for their shopping needs, while 32% of those users who do shop online prefer Cash on Delivery (CoD) for online purchases (IAMAI 2013).