Pine Labs forays into branded wearables market

Retail omnichannel fintech solutions provider Pine Labs on Thursday announced its foray into the branded wearables market allowing customers to purchase wearable devices of some brands on a buy-now-pay-later arrangement through the company’s point-of-sale (PoS) terminals, the fintech player said in a statement. 

Wearables of brands including Fire-Boltt and Play shall be available on the Pine Labs’ Pay Later EMI platform, according to the release.  

“Our merchant partners can now offer digital pay later options to shoppers and drive sales in the process. With the ongoing festive season, this would definitely send some cheers among our retail merchant community pan India," said Mayur Mulani, business head at Pay Later, Pine Labs. 

The watch-based wearables segment grew about 141% annually in 2021 as total shipments touched 14.4 million units in this period, according to figures released by the International Data Corporation. 

Pine Labs currently offers Buy Now Pay Later services via online and offline modes, through its Plural gateways and Plutus Smart PoS terminals, respectively. 

The fintech company’s payment services are available to electronics, lifestyle, automobile, grocery, healthcare and hospitality services sellers in India and Malaysia.  

In a bid to expand its current offerings, the company completed its merger with Qwikcilver Solutions, a prepaid, stored value and gift card startup, in September.  

In June, it acquired Bengaluru-based Setu, an API (application programming interface) infrastructure fintech startup for around $70-75 million (around Rs 550-580 crore). This was the Noida-based merchant’s third acquisition in 2022.  

Pine Labs’ Chief Executive Officer Amrish Rau said the company was targeting $4-5 billion in monthly transactions within two years for its new online payments business, contributing about 20% to its total revenues. It currently clocks about $200 million in annual revenues.  

Founded in 1998 by Lokvir Kapoor, Rajul Garg, and Tarun Upadhyay, the fintech solutions company is backed by Sequoia India, Actis Capital, Temasek, PayPal and Mastercard.  

With the boom in digital payments services in India, Pine Labs competes with Tiger Global-backed Razorpay, and Prosus’ PayU, two of the largest online transaction service providers in the domestic market.