I have been using Bullet as UPI pay later service for last few months. And I have found it good. Today I realized it’s by Jupiter only.
I have the following on my wishlist:-
Enable auto-pay. I want to automate the monthly settlement of bills.
Settle bills with Credit and Debit Card. Currently, only UPI is allowed to settle bills. If you have used “Simpl” they have done a brilliant job in settling outstanding bills with either automatically on the due date, or one-tap manually. Even with credit card one-tap bills are settled. Really simple it is. Please check the UX of Simpl app to draw inspiration from simplicity of payment process. No OTP/ CVV required to be filled manually. One tap to pay or on the due date, automatically bill amount is charged to credit card and bill is settled. Can we have it in Bullet too?
There are business reasons why we can’t support Debit and Credit card repayments . A) CC leads to credit revolver behaviour b) in UPI, there is no revenue earned in payments to merchant so literally it becomes bleeding proposition
A) Thinking from the customer’s pov, it’s good if CC is the one final channel for all cash outflows. It’s a CC hack. Customer earns rewards points. Nowadays people have been paying rent also using CC. Even if they have enough balance in bank account. And pay it off immediately. To earn rewards and have a good credit score.
B) I know you have to bear the MDR charges if you allow us to settle bills using CC or Debit card. UPI is free as of now. But in the long run Govt. won’t keep UPI for free for sure. Have you thought about it?
What about auto-pay?
UPI mandate can be set so it would be settled automatically without asking UPI PIN if the Bullet outstanding amount is less than 2500 if I am not wrong. Pl correct me if I am wrong here.
For the customer, the carrot for paying through a credit card is lost then. Why would I pay extra to pay through CC. In fact many merchants if you negotiate with them, they give you a discount of 1.5% if I pay through UPI. Because if I pay the merchant using CC, he has to bear that 1.5% MDR charges. So with UPI he gets the money instantly and free and so gives me a 1.5% discount. Try this tip with a neighbourhood kirana wala or a shopkeeper next time.
May I rather request to put in the energies here. Because you will receive settlement on time, we customers will not have to login to pay. On said date, automatically bullet bill would be settled. You may look for UPI mandate or even “add as biller” in bank account.
I know one thing here that may hurt you with auto-pay. If people start paying bills on time, if everyone does, you won’t earn from their late payment fees.
The prime suspect is MDR charges that you have to bear. That is limiting you to let us pay with not only a CC but also a Debit card.
Let’s talk about Debit card. There is no arbitrage and revolver behaviour here. Will you let us pay using Debit card? No. Cred also stopped Debit card because of MDR charges. The same with you.
I pay for everything with my CC. Because why not. It pays me back reward points which i can encash. And in turn, it helps me build a healthy credit score. I always make sure to pay the CC bill on time. I have never paid a late fine. And that too I pay CC bill with my debit card. So I earn reward points on my Debit card too for making payment of credit card bills. Double benefits.
In short, my credit card and the debit card, both pays me back. Instead of me paying them. What I am doing is neither illegal nor promoting any arbitrage and revolver behaviour.
Why are you not accepting that it is the underlying MDR charges that is stopping you to let us pay using either Debit or Credit card? I understand the limitations of running a business. We can end this discussion here on this note. Currently the discussion is going on a different track.
In the context to the card payments having MDR charges, I had mentioned above that today UPI is free. But someday it won’t be, someday merchants have to pay charges to Govt. It would be chargeable to UPI merchants accounts. Not UPI customers accounts. Then what? UPI will be taken off too.
I am leaving you with this question to ponder upon.
Have a nice weekend.
@rupeshmandal I feel like your problems are largely speculated than pre-existing. How far would someone want to go for a mere 1.5% cash back. I mean, cash-backs are good but promoting excessive consumerist behaviour.
A “give it all to me for free” approach for everything is not at all sustainable.
About the speculation of UPI becoming a chargeable service, it’s just a speculation for now. And in case it becomes a chargeable transaction, everyone would incur it. And hence the next steps would be for the industry to tackle the issue at large. In case, the industry and merchants give in to this charge, it would become the new normal. Easy.
Can Jitendra deny that MDR charges are stopping him to allow debit card payment options (forgive and forget credit card for a moment)?
Or is that also a speculation?
My issues is Jitendra’s ‘ego’ coming in the way to accept the fact about MDR charges in public. Just accept it and move on in life, man. No one is pushing you at a gunpoint.
I had asked the same question to Kunal Shah of Cred upon stopping Debit card payment and he openly admitted yes, it’s MDR charges.
Everyone likes a little exra. And why not. I don’t have to do anything much. Simply i have to make payment with credit card or debit card instead of upi. I have to pay anyway. It’s just about choosing a method that pays me back. Value. That’s it.
Exactly my point. Neither bullet is doing charity nor is Govt. So definitely one day, I don’t know when, but some day for sure in the future merchants will have to pay UPI transaction charges to Govt. Remember, how in 2017 Govt. in order to accelerate digital behaviour, waived off MDR charges for 2 years and then they started charging for transaction amount more than Rs 2000 and then for transaction less than Rs 2000 also attracted charges for merchant. Similarly, it’s honeymoon period of UPI now.
The customer behaviour is that it can go back to cash or other means. So the burden goes to merchants only who have to pay.
In usual banking, if you notice, NEFT is free, so normally people are okay if you NEFT (free, but settlement in 2 hours) them instead of IMPS (charged but settlement instantly). So a customer always seeks value to squeeze it to maximum. Because like I said it’s business. A company is also for the same, profits. Not charity.
Not many front end banking solution services have a community page to begin with.
CRED’s business model is about reward systems, cash backs, and saving unnecessary charges. So yes, Kunal Shah would want to highlight MDR charges as his service is about saving those charges. They have huge brand tie ups, CRED coins ecosystem. And a high spending user base. The business model of CRED is about reward ecosystem. So they have built their partnerships like that fundamentally.
Jupiter, on the other hand, is a money management front end service. So obviously, their tie ups are not what you would expect CRED has. It’s a totally different service.
So the comments of two founders on any issue is in the context of the business/service they are building.
Again, it’s just a speculation so really can’t comment on it. And if charges are there, it’s for everyone.
Jupiter is not about what you might be expecting right now. Maybe you need a service like CRED.
Truth be told, Jupiter is right now all talks and nothing else. It itself is only a speculation. Can tell more only when I use it first-hand for real.
Little that we know so far, there is Federal bank in the backend, and Jupiter is a service design layer on top of it. There are Neo banks that already exist in the market today. What is new? I don’t know. So I will wait for launch to say anything more.
Also, there are other services like bullet pay that exist in the market. Lazypay is there. There too it’s nothing new or unique or something others can’t replicate. It’s a clutered space, everyone prividing similar service and customer is never loyal.
Well, little late but I wanted to admit a counter view to this discussion:-
Banks today are giving you simple interest of around 2.5-3.5% p.a. on your savings account balance. For that you have to keep the money in the bank and wait for a year.
With a credit card, on your spends you are getting 1.5% back. Remember you are going to spend that money anyway. Say electricity bill payments, grocery, medicines etc. These are mandatory expenses. Now, you have the choice to either pay with net-banking or UPI or Debit/ Credit cards.
So if a Credit card (lifetime free and no charges) is giving me back 1.5% of the spend when the next statement is generated, why not pay with the card?
Suddenly your spends become investments.
Again 1.5% sounds “mere” but you have a time profit too against low savings bank interest rate, you don’t have to wait for a year to earn 2.5% savings interest.
See that’s where the problem is. Banks offer cards, premium cards, ultra premium cards, what not. And usually for giving a % discount to you, sometimes the merchant/seller/service provider gets a lesser cut.
Now, two problems.
Either you deny the premium credit cards at your store and let the consumer whine about your policies.
Or you increase your charges, and well… let consumer whine about your policies.
Let’s look at the ocean now -
If you go macroeconomic, some price hikes are often the result of the consumer wanting excessive discounts and cashbacks. If you save then and there, prices will go up faster and you won’t be aware about it. Even if you don’t realise, you will still be paying the price.
Convenience fees is something you and me can’t really dodge. It’s essential for good services to function longer.
@Divyaansh_Agarwal before I answer your points in particular, may I know if you are working at Bullet or Jupiter? Recently a few Jupiter folks visited my LinkedIn profile too.
Also, my next query is, how does Bullet UPI Pay Later generate revenue? One, I can guess is late fees when a customer doesn’t settle his or her bills on the due date. Anything else that I don’t know yet on how Bullet Pay will make money?
Only if I am aware of the business model, I can speak on how sustainable it is.
Okay, so in my Bullet account, I have a credit of Rs 6500. But say while shopping online, the bill amount is Rs 10,000. Can I transfer Rs 3500 to my Bullet pay UPI to increase the credit limit to 10,000 and then pay through bullet?
You may ask why do I want to do so? Reasons being:-
Just to use Bullet regularly for any UPI payment. And I can’t make payment online in parts. I have to make payment in one go.
Utilise the credit and since Rs 10,000 bill amount is more than the available limit in my Bullet account (Rs 6500) so if I make an upfront payment of Rs 3500 to my bullet pay UPI ID to increase the limit temporarily to make payment of Rs 10k. I can clear the remaining Rs 6500 Bullet on the due date or when the auto-pay is launched, it would be paid off automatically from my bank.
Instead of paying Rs 10,000 upfront from my bank account to a UPI payment, I would have to pay only Rs 3500 now from my bank account. The rest 6500 I can pay later to bullet.
