Fintech major Paytm is facilitating auto-rickshaw booking services on its platform via the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC). According to a Moneycontrol report, the company is making a move into the ride-hailing market offering auto-rickshaw rides in cities like Delhi, Bengaluru and Chennai through the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC).
The feature, which is still being tested and only a small number of Paytm users can see it yet, will challenge the dominance of Ola and Uber in the ride-hailing space, the report said.
In the last two years, Paytm has been gradually rolling out ONDC for various e-commerce categories, including food delivery, groceries, fashion and electronics.
“There is a lot of software testing and integration that goes into each rollout. There is no reason why Paytm will not also get into cab bookings like Ola and Uber as well at a later stage,” said a person close to the developments, according to the Moneycontrol report.
When an auto gets booked on the Paytm app, it says that the feature is ‘Powered by Namma Yatri’, which acts as the seller-side app in the transaction. The Juspay-backed platform also operates several consumer-facing apps of its own for ride-hailing on ONDC.
In the last couple of years, Namma Yatri has enabled 3.73 crore rides in 7 cities, including Bengaluru, Delhi, Kolkata and other metros. However, most of these were auto rides, and the company is also starting cab bookings across cities even as it is closing in on its Series A round of $10-15 million.
Namma Yatri makes money on these trips through a subscription model for drivers and does not charge any per-ride commission. However, sources told Moneycontrol that buyer-side apps could charge the drivers a fee per ride for finding customers.
What is ONDC?
ONDC is an open technology network based on open protocol and will enable local commerce across segments, such as mobility, grocery, food order and delivery, hotel booking and travel, to be discovered and engaged by any network-enabled application.
The platform allows buyers and sellers to connect and transact with each other online, regardless of what other applications they use. The buyers and sellers do not have to use the same platform or same mobile app to have a transaction. They can use different applications and still do business transactions.
The benefits of ONDC include access to more buyers; better discoverability of products and cost; autonomy on terms because of multiple choices for being digitally visible; lower cost of doing business; and more options for value chain services like logistics and fulfilment.
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